At Lowood, which is run by the hypocritical ogre Mr. Brocklehurst, the students never have enough to eat or warm clothes. However, Jane finds a pious friend, Helen Burns, and a sympathetic teacher, Miss Temple. Under their influence, she becomes an excellent student, learning all the little bits and pieces of culture that made up a lady’s education in Victorian England: French, piano-playing, singing, and drawing. Unfortunately, an epidemic of typhus breaks out at the school, and Helen dies—but of consumption, not typhus. Jane remains at Lowood as a student until she’s sixteen, and then as a teacher until she’s eighteen. When Miss Temple leaves the school to get married, Jane gets a case of wanderlust and arranges to leave the school