Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Chapter 21 Page 26

nine years ago, walked down the path I was now ascending.

On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart — a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation — to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

“You shall go into the breakfast-room first,” said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall; “the young ladies will be there.”