Select the correct text in the passage. Which detail best develops the character of the narrator, Jane Eyre, in the excerpt?
excerpt from Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
In the following excerpt, the narrator, Jane Eyre, describes an interaction with her nursemaid, Bessie.
Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library.
This book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what
I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the
ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage
country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid
parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees,
the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats,
the tower-like men and women, of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand-when I turned over its leaves, and
sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find-all was eerie and dreary, the giants were gaunt goblins, the
pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared
no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.
Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds
of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang: her song was-
"In the days when we went gipsying,
A long time ago."
I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice. -at least, I thought so. But now, though her voice
was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very
lingeringly.