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 Bronte
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 Tratals 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.