I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. The dying Mrs. Reed says this about Jane. She is remembering that her husband entrusted the care of the orphaned Jane to her when she was a baby. But she never wanted to take care for Jane and resented the fact that she had to. Mrs. Reed despised her husband because she felt he loved Jane more than his own children.