I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I

stopped my cars against the voice that kept warning me of near

separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had

taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and

Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a

sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of

golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted

far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered,

unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the

spectacle of a group so amicable--when he said he supposed the old

lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back

again, and added that he saw Adele was "prete e croquer sa petite

maman Anglaise"--I half ventured to hope that he would, even after

his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his

protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.

Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation

going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax

if she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the

negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr.

Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he

had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she

could not tell what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no

journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be

sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but

what was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and

indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a

morning's ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to

conceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had been

mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used

to look at my master's face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I

could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of

clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent

with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he

became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his

presence; never been kinder to me when there--and, alas! never had I

loved him so well.




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