Chapter 11

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    A neter in a novel is something like a new se in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the Gee Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, suents on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of Gee the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bo; my muff and umbrella lie oable, and I am warming away the numbness and chill tracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o’clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striki.

    Reader, though I look fortably aodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some oo meet me; I looked anxiously round as I desded the woodehe “boots” placed for my venience, expeg to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to vey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the ive: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.

    It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every e, uaiher the port to which it is bound  be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but thehrob of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself t the bell.

    “Is there a pla this neighbourhood called Thornfield?” I asked of the waiter who answered the summons.

    “Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.” He vanished, but reappeared instantly—

    “Is your name Eyre, Miss?”

    “Yes.”

    “Person here waiting for you.”

    I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn- passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse veyance.

    “This will be ygage, I suppose?” said the man rather abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage.

    “Yes.” He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield.

    “A matter of six miles.”

    “How long shall we be before we get there?”

    “Happen an hour and a half.”

    He fastehe car door, climbed to his ow outside, a off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was tent to be at length so he end of my journey; and as I leaned ba the fortable though not elegant veyance, I meditated much at my ease.

    “I suppose,” thought I, “judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolutio it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with s. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a sers. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the worst e to the worst, I  advertise again. How far are we on our road now, I wonder?”

    I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of siderable magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of on; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic.

    The roads were heavy, the night misty; my ductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verify believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said—

    “You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.”

    Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tainst the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly asded a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: dlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it ened by a maid-servant; I alighted a in.

    “Will you walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and dle at first dazzled me, trasting as it did with the darko which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture preseself to my view.

    A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the  imagitle elderly lady, in widow’s cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin aproly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to plete the beau-ideal of domestifort. A more reassuring introdu for a new governess could scarcely be ceived; there was no grao overwhelm, no statelio embarrass; and then, as I ehe old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.

    “How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives so slowly; you must be cold, e to the fire.”

    “Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?” said I.

    “Yes, you are right: do sit down.”

    She ducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my borings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble.

    “Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the storeroom.”

    And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them to the servant.

    “Now, then, draw o the fire,” she tinued. “You’ve brought ygage with you, haven’t you, my dear?”

    “Yes, ma’am.”

    “I’ll see it carried into your room,” she said, and bustled out.

    “She treats me like a visitor,” thought I. “I little expected such a reception; I anticipated only ess and stiffness: this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must  too soon.”

    She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah nht, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather fused at being the objeore attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to sider she was doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly.

    “Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?” I asked, when I had partaken of what she offered me.

    “What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,” returhe good lady, approag her ear to my mouth.

    I repeated the question more distinctly.

    “Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future pupil.”

    “Ihen she is not your daughter?”

    “No,—I have no family.”

    I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens was ected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.

    “I am so glad,” she tinued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her knee; “I am so glad you are e; it will be quite pleasant living here now with a panion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather ed of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in wiime one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very det people; but then you see they are only servants, and one ’t verse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority. I’m sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don’t think the pirl liked the task much: she felt it fining. In spring and summer o oer: sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the e of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay.”

    My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a little o her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my pany as agreeable as she anticipated.

    “But I’ll not keep you sitting up late to-night,” said she; “it is oroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I’ll show you your bedroom. I’ve had the room o mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself.”

    I thanked her for her siderate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long journey, expressed my readio retire. She took her dle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the stairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they beloo a church rather than a house. A very chill and vault- like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of spad solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.

    When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my dazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspey little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue aal ay, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I k down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not fetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and tent, I slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it was broad day.

    The chamber looked such a bright little plae as the sun shone iween the gay blue tz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so uhe bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effe the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, ohat was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the ge of se, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I ot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefiure period.

    I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still by nature solicitous to be . It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the trary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortuhat I was so little, so pale, and had features sular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a y—and adjusted my  white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, ahat I left all things straight a ooilet table, I ventured forth.

    Traversing the long and matted gallery, I desded the slippery steps of oak; then I gaihe hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pe from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me<cite></cite>; but then I was so little aced to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fiumn m; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advang on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though siderable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose g tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explaihe etymology of the mansion’s designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor sy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to fient so he stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood hornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.

    I was yet enjoying the calm prosped pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the g of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door.

    “What! out already?” said she. “I see you are an early riser.” I went up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.

    “How do you like Thornfield?” she asked. I told her I liked it very much.

    “Yes,” she said, “it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to e and reside here permaly; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor.”

    “Mr. Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?”

    “The owner of Thornfield,” she responded quietly. “Did you not know he was called Rochester?”

    Of course I did not—I had never heard of <big></big>him before; but the old lady seemed tard his existence as a universally uood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.

    “I thought,” I tinued, “Thornfield beloo you.”

    “To me? Bless you, child; what ao me! I am only the housekeeper—the mao be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother’s side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder on the hill—and that churear the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester’s mother was a Fairfax, and sed cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the e—in fact, it is nothing to me; I sider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I expeothing more.”

    “And the little girl—my pupil!”

    “She is Mr. Rochester’s ward; he issioned me to find a governess for her. He inteo have her brought up in—shire, I believe. Here she es, with her ‘bonne,’ as she calls her he enigma then was explaihis affable and kind little as no great dame; but a dependant like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the trary, I felt better pleased thahe equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of dession on her part: so much the better—my position was all the freer.

    As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven ht years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.

    “Good m, Miss Adela,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “e and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.” She approached.

    “C’est le ma gouverante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who answered—

    “Mais oui, certai.”

    “Are they fners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.

    “The nurse is a fner, and Adela was born on the ti; and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now she  make shift to talk it a little: I don’t uand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say.”

    Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of versing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily—applying myself to take pains with my at, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correess in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly enced chattering fluently.

    “Ah!” cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I  talk to you as I  to him, and so  Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here uands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a ey that smoked—how it did smoke!—and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mi was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle—what is your name?”

    “Eyre—Jane Eyre.”

    “Aire? Bah! I ot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the m, before it was quite daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty  town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs.”

    “ you uand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax.

    I uood her very well, for I had been aced to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.

    “I wish,” tihe good lady, “you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?”

    “Adèle,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that pretty  town you spoke of?”

    “I lived long ago with mama; but she is goo the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me to dand sing, and to say verses. A great malemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?”

    She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a spe of her aplishments. Desding from her chair, she came and placed herself on my khen, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she enced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false ohat night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.

    The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought so.

    Adèle sang the zounefully enough, and with the é of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry.”

    Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine.” She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of void an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual i her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.

    “Was it your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked.

    “Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’ avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!’ She made me lift my hand—so—to remio raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?”

    “No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?”

    “With Madame Frédérid her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothied to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frédérid he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him.”

    After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, whi, it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open taining everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &amp;c. I suppose he had sidered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, ihey tented me amply for the present; pared with the sty pigs I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of eai and information. In this room, too, there was a et piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.

    I found my pupil suffitly docile, though disined to apply: she had not beeular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to fioo much at first; so, when I had talked treat deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the m had advao noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till diime in drawing some little sketches for her use.

    As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: “Your m school-hours are over now, I suppose,” said she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window ri slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.

    “What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any half so imposing.

    “Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opehe window, to let in a little air and sunshine; for everythis so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault.”

    She poio a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, sht to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beh which glowed in rich trast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ors on the pale Pariain mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; aween the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire.

    “In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” said I. “No dust, no vas cs: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily.”

    “Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden and ued; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle ement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.”

    “Is Mr. Rochester aing, fastidious sort of man?”

    “Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in ity to them.”

    “Do you like him? Is he generally liked?”

    “Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you  see, has beloo the Rochesters time out of mind.”

    “Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?”

    “I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is sidered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived much amongst them.”

    “But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?”

    “Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much versation with him.”

    “In what way is he peculiar?”

    “I don’t know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you ot be always sure whether he is i or ear, whether he is pleased or the trary; you don’t thhly uand him, in short—at least, I don’t: but it is of no sequence, he is a very good master.”

    This was all the at I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mihere are people who seem to have no notion of sketg a character, or  and describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good lady evidently beloo this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor—nothing more: she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wo my wish to gain a more defiion of his identity.

    When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were iing from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the loartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions ged: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fihat for two geions had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in <samp>?</samp>the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and stra human beings,— all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.

    “Do the servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked.

    “No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the bao one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.”

    “So I think: you have no ghost, then?”

    “hat I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.

    “Nor any traditions of one? no legends host stories?”

    “I believe not. A is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet ra their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now.”

    “Yes—‘after life’s fitful fever they sleep well,’” I muttered. “Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away.

    “On to the leads; will you e ahe view from thence?” I followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow y, and could see into their s. Leaning over the battlements and looking far do..wn, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright a lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its aimber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly rown, greener with moss tharees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing iumn day’s sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. ure in the se was extraordinary, but all leasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault pared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit se of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the tre, and over which I had been gazing with delight.

    Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasterap-door; I, by drift of groping, found the outlet from the attid proceeded to desd the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and bas of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only otle window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle.

    While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it inated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whehe ats issued.

    “Mrs. Fairfax!” I called out: for I now heard her desding the great stairs. “Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?”

    “Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace Poole.”

    “Did you hear it?” I again inquired.

    “Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together.”

    The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabie, and terminated in an odd murmur.

    “Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.

    I really did not expey Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness apahe curious caation; but tha<samp></samp>t her se nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for eaining a sense even of surprise.

    The door  me opened, and a servant came out,—a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be ceived.

    “Too muoise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember dires!” Grace curtseyed silently a in.

    “She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s work,” tihe widow; “not altogether uionable in some points, but she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this m?”

    The versation, thus turned on Adèle, tiill we reached the light and cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming—

    “Mesdames, vous etes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!”

    We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room.

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