I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and […]
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It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,’ said he, ‘when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns.’ His manner was polite; his accent, in […]
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The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was […]
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‘She wishes to know who will be her first visitor.’‘I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,’ said Colonel Dent.‘Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.’Sam went and returned.‘She says, sir, that she’ll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor,’ he […]
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‘Surely, colonel,’ cried Lady Ingram, ‘you would not encourage such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!’ ‘But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady,’ said the footman; ‘nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken […]
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He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that ‘extremes meet.’ Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make […]
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‘It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,’ said he, ‘when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns.’ His manner was polite; his accent, in […]
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Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride— saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their movements of importance—the rest of the party were occupied with their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two […]
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Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, […]
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There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram’s. But I was not jealous: or very rarely;—the nature of the pain I […]
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