It gave her a sensation of pleasure to know that such a mishap would annoy and distress him very much; and, at the very moment of this sensation, she drew back and tested the firmness of the ground about its roots before resigning herself unreservedly to the tree again.

When she had resumed her former position with a feeling of perfect safety, she continued for a few minutes to dilate in fancy upon the suffering that would be caused by the death her whim had suggested.

She was not a cruel girl, not on the whole ill-natured, yet such is human nature that this idea was actually the first that had given her satisfaction for many hours.

How sorry Mr.Bates would be, when he found her dead, that he had dared to speak so angrily to her! It was, in a way, luxurious to contemplate the pathos of such an artistic death for herself, and its fine effect, by way of revenge, upon the guardian who had made himself intolerable to her.
From her post of observation she now saw, what had not before been observed by any one, that where rock and earth had fallen treacherously under her father's tread, another portion of the bank was loosened ready to fall.

Where this loosening--the work no doubt of the frost--had taken place, there was but a narrow passage between the ravine and the house, and she was startled to be the first to discover what was so essential for all in the house to know.