"She was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once and she defying us.... I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance; she never took an aversion to me though."
In Chap. IV. of Jane Eyre Bessie says to Jane Eyre, after the latter has asked her not to scold:—
"Well, I will, but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak sharply."
"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I have got used to you."
Jane suggests Bessie dislikes her, to which is replied:—
"I don't dislike you.... I believe I am fonder of you than of all the others."
"You don't show it."
"You sharp little thing!... What makes you so venturesome and hardy?"
The idiosyncratic appeal Tabitha Aykroyd made to Charlotte is related identically wherever she is portrayed. That Charlotte Brontë had been initially entranced by her fairy tales, and the old songs she sang, is shown more especially in the phases she gives of Tabitha as Bessie and as Ellen Dean. Thus we read in Jane Eyre, Chap. IV., in the close of the scene just given:—