Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.
Cada lámina de por sí me relataba una historia: una historia generalmente oscura para mi inteligencia y mis sentimientos no del todo desarrollados aún, pero siempre interesante, tan interesante como los cuentos que Bessie nos contaba algunas tardes de invierno, cuando estaba de buen humor. En esas ocasiones llevaba a nuestro cuarto la mesa de planchar y, mientras repasaba los lazos de encaje y los gorros de dormir de Mrs.