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 consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen

were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with the

younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The

dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.

Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity,

some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into

conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and

airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the

library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and

prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of

absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then the

merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.

It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of

the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt by me in

the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed "Voile, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!"

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the

others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the

same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs

became audible on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.

"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram.

"He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out?

and Pilot was with him:- what has he done with the animals?"

As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments

so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the

breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at

first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another

casement. The post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell,

and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not

Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.

"How provoking!" exclaimed Miss Ingram: "you tiresome monkey!"

(apostrophising Adele), "who perched you up in the window to give

false intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I

were in fault.

Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer

entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady

present.




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