prompt:
Chapter: Two days are passed.  It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me
down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for the sum
I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world.
The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone.  At this moment I
discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of the coach,
where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it must remain;
and now, I am absolutely destitute.

Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up
where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more obvious at a
distance and in darkness.  Four arms spring from its summit: the nearest
town to which these point is, according to the inscription, distant ten
miles; the farthest, above twenty.  From the well-known names of these
towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a north-midland shire, dusk
with moorland, ridged with mountain: this I see.  There are great moors
behind and on each hand of me; there are waves of mountains far beyond
that deep valley at my feet.  The population here must be thin, and I see
no passengers on these roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and
south--white, broad, lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the
heather grows deep and wild to their very verge.  Yet a chance traveller
might pass by; and I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder
what I am doing, lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless
and lost.  I might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would
sound incredible and excite suspicion.  Not a tie holds me to human
society at this moment--not a charm or hope calls me where my
fellow-creatures are--none that saw me would have a kind thought or a
good wish for me.  I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I
will seek her breast and ask repose.

I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply
furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I
turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a
hidden angle, I sat down under it.  High banks of moor were about me; the
crag protected my head: the sky was over that.

Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread
that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might
discover me.  If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it
was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man.
Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep
silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confidence.
As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I
regained the faculty of reflection.

What was I to do?  Where to go?  Oh, intolerable questions, when I could
do nothing and go nowhere!--when a long way must yet be measured by my
weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation--when cold
charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant
sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale
could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!

I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer
day.  I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled just above
the chasm ridge.  The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze
whispered.  Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me,
outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust,
rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness.  To-night, at
least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me
without money and without price.  I had one morsel of bread yet: the
remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed through at noon with a
stray penny--my last coin.  I saw ripe bilberries gleaming here and
there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a handful and ate them
with the bread.  My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased
by this hermit's meal.  I said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and
then chose my couch.

{I said my evening prayers: p311.jpg}

Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were
buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for
the night-air to invade.  I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me
for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow.  Thus lodged, I was
not, at least--at the commencement of the night, cold.

My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.  It
plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords.  It
trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter
pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird
with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain
attempts to seek him.

Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees.  Night was
come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the
companionship of fear.  We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we
feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread
before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel
their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His
omnipotence, His omnipresence.  I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr.
Rochester.  Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-
way.  Remembering what it was--what countless systems there swept space
like a soft trace of light--I felt the might and strength of God.  Sure
was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that
neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured.  I turned
my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of
spirits.  Mr. Rochester was safe; he was God's, and by God would he be
guarded.  I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in
sleep forgot sorrow.

But next day, Want came to me pale and bare.  Long after the little birds
had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime of day
to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried--when the long morning
shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky--I got up, and I
looked round me.

What a still, hot, perfect day!  What a golden desert this spreading
moor!  Everywhere sunshine.  I wished I could live in it and on it.  I
saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet
bilberries.  I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I
might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here.  But I was a
human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger where there
was nothing to supply them.  I rose; I looked back at the bed I had left.
Hopeless of the future, I wished but this--that my Maker had that night
thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary
frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to
decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness.
Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and
pains, and responsibilities.  The burden must be carried; the want
provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled.  I set
out.

Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now fervent
and high.  By no other circumstance had I will to decide my choice.  I
walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done enough, and
might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered
me--might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a stone I saw
near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart and limb--I
heard a bell chime--a church bell.

I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic
hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw a
hamlet and a spire.  All the valley at my right hand was full of pasture-
fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zig-zag
through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the sombre
woodland, the clear and sunny lea.  Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to
the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill,
and not far beyond were two cows and their drover.  Human life and human
labour were near.  I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil
like the rest.

About two o'clock p.m. I entered the village.  At the bottom of its one
street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window.  I
coveted a cake of bread.  With that refreshment I could perhaps regain a
degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult to proceed.  The wish
to have some strength and some vigour returned to me as soon as I was
amongst my fellow-beings.  I felt it would be degrading to faint with
hunger on the causeway of a hamlet.  Had I nothing about me I could offer
in exchange for one of these rolls?  I considered.  I had a small silk
handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves.  I could hardly tell
how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded.  I did not
know whether either of these articles would be accepted: probably they
would not; but I must try.

I entered the shop: a woman was there.  Seeing a respectably-dressed
person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility.  How
could she serve me?  I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter
the request I had prepared.  I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves,
the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be absurd.  I only
begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired.  Disappointed in
the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request.  She
pointed to a seat; I sank into it.  I felt sorely urged to weep; but
conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained
it.  Soon I asked her "if there were any dressmaker or plain-workwoman in
the village?"

"Yes; two or three.  Quite as many as there was employment for."

I reflected.  I was driven to the point now.  I was brought face to face
with Necessity.  I stood in the position of one without a resource,
without a friend, without a coin.  I must do something.  What?  I must
apply somewhere.  Where?

"Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was
wanted?"

"Nay; she couldn't say."

"What was the chief trade in this place?  What did most of the people
do?"

"Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's
needle-factory, and at the foundry."

"Did Mr. Oliver employ women?"

"Nay; it was men's work."

"And what do the women do?"

"I knawn't," was the answer.  "Some does one thing, and some another.
Poor folk mun get on as they can."

She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had I to
importune her?  A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently
wanted.  I took leave.

I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the right
hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see an
inducement to enter any.  I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to
a little distance and returning again, for an hour or more.  Much
exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I turned aside
into a lane and sat down under the hedge.  Ere many minutes had elapsed,
I was again on my feet, however, and again searching something--a
resource, or at least an informant.  A pretty little house stood at the
top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and
brilliantly blooming.  I stopped at it.  What business had I to approach
the white door or touch the glittering knocker?  In what way could it
possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me?
Yet I drew near and knocked.  A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman
opened the door.  In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless
heart and fainting frame--a voice wretchedly low and faltering--I asked
if a servant was wanted here?

"No," said she; "we do not keep a servant."

"Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?" I continued.
"I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place.  I want some work:
no matter what."

But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me:
besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my character,
position, tale.  She shook her head, she "was sorry she could give me no
information," and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly: but it
shut me out.  If she had held it open a little longer, I believe I should
have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low.

I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no
prospect of aid was visible.  I should have longed rather to deviate to a
wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer
inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature's
cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a chance
of food.  Solitude would be no solitude--rest no rest--while the vulture,
hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.

I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I
wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim to
ask--no right to expect interest in my isolated lot.  Meantime, the
afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and starving
dog.  In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I hastened
towards it.  Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a
well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage.  I
remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where they have no
friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for
introduction and aid.  It is the clergyman's function to help--at least
with advice--those who wished to help themselves.  I seemed to have
something like a right to seek counsel here.  Renewing then my courage,
and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on.  I reached the
house, and knocked at the kitchen-door.  An old woman opened: I asked was
this the parsonage?

"Yes."

"Was the clergyman in?"

"No."

"Would he be in soon?"

"No, he was gone from home."

"To a distance?"

"Not so far--happen three mile.  He had been called away by the sudden
death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very likely stay
there a fortnight longer."

"Was there any lady of the house?"

"Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;" and of her,
reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was
sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.

Once more I took off my handkerchief--once more I thought of the cakes of
bread in the little shop.  Oh, for but a crust! for but one mouthful to
allay the pang of famine!  Instinctively I turned my face again to the
village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others were
there besides the woman I ventured the request--"Would she give me a roll
for this handkerchief?"

She looked at me with evident suspicion: "Nay, she never sold stuff i'
that way."

Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused.  "How could
she tell where I had got the handkerchief?" she said.

"Would she take my gloves?"

"No! what could she do with them?"

Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details.  Some say there is
enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I
can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral
degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a
recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on.  I blamed none of those who
repulsed me.  I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not
be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a
well-dressed beggar inevitably so.  To be sure, what I begged was
employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment?  Not,
certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who
knew nothing about my character.  And as to the woman who would not take
my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the
offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable.  Let me
condense now.  I am sick of the subject.

A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which the
farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese.  I stopped and
said--

"Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry."  He cast on me
a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice from
his loaf, and gave it to me.  I imagine he did not think I was a beggar,
but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown
loaf.  As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down and ate it.

I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood
I have before alluded to.  But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the
ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more
than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of
safety or tranquillity befriended me.  Towards morning it rained; the
whole of the following day was wet.  Do not ask me, reader, to give a
minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was
repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did food pass my lips.  At the
door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold
porridge into a pig trough.  "Will you give me that?" I asked.

{"Will you give me that?"  I asked: p316.jpg}

She stared at me.  "Mother!" she exclaimed, "there is a woman wants me to
give her these porridge."

"Well lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar.  T'
pig doesn't want it."

The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it
ravenously.

As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which
I had been pursuing an hour or more.

"My strength is quite failing me," I said in a soliloquy.  "I feel I
cannot go much farther.  Shall I be an outcast again this night?  While
the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground?  I
fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me?  But it will be very
dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this sense
of desolation--this total prostration of hope.  In all likelihood,
though, I should die before morning.  And why cannot I reconcile myself
to the prospect of death?  Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life?
Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of
want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively.  Oh,
Providence! sustain me a little longer!  Aid!--direct me!"

My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape.  I saw I had
strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight.  The very
cultivation surrounding it had disappeared.  I had, by cross-ways and by-
paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few
fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which they were
scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.

"Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented
road," I reflected.  "And far better that crows and ravens--if any ravens
there be in these regions--should pick my flesh from my bones, than that
they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper's
grave."

To the hill, then, I turned.  I reached it.  It remained now only to find
a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not secure.
But all the surface of the waste looked level.  It showed no variation
but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black,
where the dry soil bore only heath.  Dark as it was getting, I could
still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light and
shade; for colour had faded with the daylight.

My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge,
vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in among
the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up.  "That is an _ignis
fatuus_," was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish.  It
burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing.  "Is
it, then, a bonfire just kindled?" I questioned.  I watched to see
whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not
enlarge.  "It may be a candle in a house," I then conjectured; "but if
so, I can never reach it.  It is much too far away: and were it within a
yard of me, what would it avail?  I should but knock at the door to have
it shut in my face."

And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground.  I lay
still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and died
moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the
skin.  Could I but have stiffened to the still frost--the friendly
numbness of death--it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it;
but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence.  I rose ere
long.

The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain.  I
tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it.  It
led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been
impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the height
of summer.  Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my
faculties.  This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it.

Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor.  I
approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the light,
which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of trees--firs,
apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of their forms
and foliage through the gloom.  My star vanished as I drew near: some
obstacle had intervened between me and it.  I put out my hand to feel the
dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough stones of a low wall--above
it, something like palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge.  I
groped on.  Again a whitish object gleamed before me: it was a gate--a
wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it.  On each side stood a
sable bush-holly or yew.

Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose
to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone
nowhere.  All was obscurity.  Were the inmates retired to rest?  I feared
it must be so.  In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out
the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small
latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the
growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick
over the portion of the house wall in which it was set.  The aperture was
so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed
unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage
shooting over it, I could see all within.  I could see clearly a room
with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter
plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a glowing
peat-fire.  I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs.  The
candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its
light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean,
like all about her, was knitting a stocking.

I noticed these objects cursorily only--in them there was nothing
extraordinary.  A group of more interest appeared near the hearth,
sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it.  Two young,
graceful women--ladies in every point--sat, one in a low rocking-chair,
the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and
bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and
faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one
girl--in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat.

A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants!  Who were
they?  They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the
table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and
cultivation.  I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I
gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament.  I cannot call
them handsome--they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each
bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity.  A stand
between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which
they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller
books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to
aid them in the task of translation.  This scene was as silent as if all
the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so
hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock
tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the
click-click of the woman's knitting-needles.  When, therefore, a voice
broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me.

"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old Daniel
are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from which
he has awakened in terror--listen!"  And in a low voice she read
something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an
unknown tongue--neither French nor Latin.  Whether it were Greek or
German I could not tell.

"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it."  The
other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated,
while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read.  At a later
day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the
line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on
sounding brass to me--conveying no meaning:--

"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.'  Good! good!"
she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled.  "There you have a
dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you!  The line is worth a
hundred pages of fustian.  'Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines
Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.'  I like it!"

Both were again silent.

"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old woman,
looking up from her knitting.

"Yes, Hannah--a far larger country than England, where they talk in no
other way."

"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one t'other:
and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?"

"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all--for we
are not as clever as you think us, Hannah.  We don't speak German, and we
cannot read it without a dictionary to help us."

"And what good does it do you?"

"We mean to teach it some time--or at least the elements, as they say;
and then we shall get more money than we do now."

"Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-night."

"I think we have: at least I'm tired.  Mary, are you?"

"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language with no
master but a lexicon."

"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch.
I wonder when St. John will come home."

"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little gold
watch she drew from her girdle).  It rains fast, Hannah: will you have
the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?"

The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage:
soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.

"Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now:
it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner."

She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked
sad now.

"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn't wish him
here again.  And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had."

"You say he never mentioned us?" inquired one of the ladies.

"He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father.  He had
been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when
Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent for, he fair
laughed at him.  He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the
next day--that is, a fortnight sin'--and he went to sleep and niver
wakened: he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and
fand him.  Ah, childer! that's t' last o' t' old stock--for ye and Mr.
St. John is like of different soart to them 'at's gone; for all your
mother wor mich i' your way, and a'most as book-learned.  She wor the
pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father."

I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for
such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference.  Both were fair
complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction
and intelligence.  One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the
other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's
pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's duskier tresses
covered her neck with thick curls.  The clock struck ten.

"Ye'll want your supper, I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will Mr.
St. John when he comes in."

And she proceeded to prepare the meal.  The ladies rose; they seemed
about to withdraw to the parlour.  Till this moment, I had been so intent
on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited in me so
keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched position: now it
recurred to me.  More desolate, more desperate than ever, it seemed from
contrast.  And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this
house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my
wants and woes--to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings!  As
I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last
idea to be a mere chimera.  Hannah opened.

"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed
me by the light of the candle she held.

"May I speak to your mistresses?" I said.

"You had better tell me what you have to say to them.  Where do you come
from?"

"I am a stranger."

"What is your business here at this hour?"

"I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of
bread to eat."

Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face.  "I'll
give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we can't take
in a vagrant to lodge.  It isn't likely."

"Do let me speak to your mistresses."

"No, not I.  What can they do for you?  You should not be roving about
now; it looks very ill."

"But where shall I go if you drive me away?  What shall I do?"

"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do.  Mind you don't do
wrong, that's all.  Here is a penny; now go--"

"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther.  Don't
shut the door:--oh, don't, for God's sake!"

"I must; the rain is driving in--"

"Tell the young ladies.  Let me see them--"

"Indeed, I will not.  You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't
make such a noise.  Move off."

"But I must die if I am turned away."

"Not you.  I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about
folk's houses at this time o' night.  If you've any
followers--housebreakers or such like--anywhere near, you may tell them
we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and
guns."  Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and
bolted it within.

This was the climax.  A pang of exquisite suffering--a throe of true
despair--rent and heaved my heart.  Worn out, indeed, I was; not another
step could I stir.  I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned--I wrung my
hands--I wept in utter anguish.  Oh, this spectre of death!  Oh, this
last hour, approaching in such horror!  Alas, this isolation--this
banishment from my kind!  Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of
fortitude was gone--at least for a moment; but the last I soon
endeavoured to regain.

"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God.  Let me try to wait His
will in silence."

These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my
misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there--dumb
and still.

"All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not
condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be
if you perished here of want."

"Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and
incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid.  A form was
near--what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented
me from distinguishing.  With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed
to the door.

"Is it you, Mr. St. John?" cried Hannah.

"Yes--yes; open quickly."

"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is!  Come
in--your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad
folks about.  There has been a beggar-woman--I declare she is not gone
yet!--laid down there.  Get up! for shame!  Move off, I say!"

"Hush, Hannah!  I have a word to say to the woman.  You have done your
duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her.  I was near, and
listened to both you and her.  I think this is a peculiar case--I must at
least examine into it.  Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the
house."

{Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman: p323.jpg}

With difficulty I obeyed him.  Presently I stood within that clean,
bright kitchen--on the very hearth--trembling, sickening; conscious of an
aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten.  The two
ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at
me.

"St. John, who is it?" I heard one ask.

"I cannot tell: I found her at the door," was the reply.

"She does look white," said Hannah.

"As white as clay or death," was responded.  "She will fall: let her
sit."

And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me.  I still
possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.

"Perhaps a little water would restore her.  Hannah, fetch some.  But she
is worn to nothing.  How very thin, and how very bloodless!"

"A mere spectre!"

"Is she ill, or only famished?"

"Famished, I think.  Hannah, is that milk?  Give it me, and a piece of
bread."

Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and
the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and
put it to my lips.  Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it,
and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing.  In her simple words, too,
the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try to eat."

"Yes--try," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden
bonnet and lifted my head.  I tasted what they offered me: feebly at
first, eagerly soon.

"Not too much at first--restrain her," said the brother; "she has had
enough."  And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.

"A little more, St. John--look at the avidity in her eyes."

"No more at present, sister.  Try if she can speak now--ask her her
name."

I felt I could speak, and I answered--"My name is Jane Elliott."  Anxious
as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an _alias_.

"And where do you live?  Where are your friends?"

I was silent.

"Can we send for any one you know?"

I shook my head.

"What account can you give of yourself?"

Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and
once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast,
vagrant, and disowned by the wide world.  I dared to put off the
mendicant--to resume my natural manner and character.  I began once more
to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account--which at
present I was far too weak to render--I said after a brief pause--

"Sir, I can give you no details to-night."

"But what, then," said he, "do you expect me to do for you?"

"Nothing," I replied.  My strength sufficed for but short answers.  Diana
took the word--

"Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you
require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?"

I looked at her.  She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct
both with power and goodness.  I took sudden courage.  Answering her
compassionate gaze with a smile, I said--"I will trust you.  If I were a
masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your
hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear.  Do with me and for me
as you like; but excuse me from much discourse--my breath is short--I
feel a spasm when I speak."  All three surveyed me, and all three were
silent.

"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at present, and
ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that
milk and bread.  Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and talk the
matter over."

They withdrew.  Very soon one of the ladies returned--I could not tell
which.  A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the
genial fire.  In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah.  Ere
long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my
dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me.  I
thanked God--experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful
joy--and slept.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Two days have passed since Jane left Thornfield, and the money that she had could only allow the driver to take her as far as Whitcross, which is not even a town, but a crossroads. Jane had forgotten her parcel on the coach, so now realizes she is quite penniless and destitute. She spends the night outside, and the next morning, driven by hunger, walks to the nearest village. She stops at a shop to see if the woman knows of any work needed in the village. The woman does not, and neither does a woman at a small house Jane stops at. Jane continues on, her hunger getting stronger, until she sees the parsonage. She asks if the clergyman is in, but is told that he is not expected for another fortnight, as his father died and he had to leave town. She goes again to the shop, mastering her embarrassment to ask for some bread in exchange for her gloves, but the woman will not trade. Jane walks out of town and begs some bread from a man in a farmhouse and again sleeps outside. In the morning she passes a girl about to throw porridge to a pig, but the girl gives it to Jane when she asks for it. Jane wanders farther out of the town, and it gets darker. She sees a light in the distance, but feels too weak to approach it. She finally finds the strength and approaches a small house. Inside are an older woman and two, young graceful women, and Jane watches them through the window. When she knocks, the older woman tells her to go away. Jane tells her that she will die, and when the older woman closes the door, Jane collapses on the doorstep. Just then a man approaches and opens the door and tells the woman to let Jane in. Jane tells the people that her name is Jane Elliot and that she is too tired and famished to answer any questions. They give her some food and a bed for the night


prompt:
Chapter: The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very
dim in my mind.  I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but
few thoughts framed, and no actions performed.  I knew I was in a small
room and in a narrow bed.  To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on
it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been
almost to kill me.  I took no note of the lapse of time--of the change
from morning to noon, from noon to evening.  I observed when any one
entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could
understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could
not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible.
Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor.  Her coming disturbed
me.  I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not understand
me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me.  Diana and
Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day.  They would whisper
sentences of this sort at my bedside--

"It is very well we took her in."

"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning
had she been left out all night.  I wonder what she has gone through?"

"Strange hardships, I imagine--poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?"

"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of
speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though
splashed and wet, were little worn and fine."

"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like
it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy
would be agreeable."

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the
hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to,
myself.  I was comforted.

Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of
lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted
fatigue.  He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was
sure, would manage best, left to herself.  He said every nerve had been
overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while.
There was no disease.  He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when
once commenced.  These opinions he delivered in a few words, in a quiet,
low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man little
accustomed to expansive comment, "Rather an unusual physiognomy;
certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation."

"Far otherwise," responded Diana.  "To speak truth, St. John, my heart
rather warms to the poor little soul.  I wish we may be able to benefit
her permanently."

"That is hardly likely," was the reply.  "You will find she is some young
lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has probably
injudiciously left them.  We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring her to
them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her face
which make me sceptical of her tractability."  He stood considering me
some minutes; then added, "She looks sensible, but not at all handsome."

"She is so ill, St. John."

"Ill or well, she would always be plain.  The grace and harmony of beauty
are quite wanting in those features."

On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise
in bed, and turn.  Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, about,
as I supposed, the dinner-hour.  I had eaten with relish: the food was
good--void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had
swallowed.  When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and revived:
ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me.  I wished to
rise; but what could I put on?  Only my damp and bemired apparel; in
which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh.  I felt ashamed
to appear before my benefactors so clad.  I was spared the humiliation.

On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry.  My
black silk frock hung against the wall.  The traces of the bog were
removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite
decent.  My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered
presentable.  There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb and
brush to smooth my hair.  After a weary process, and resting every five
minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself.  My clothes hung loose on me;
for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once
more, clean and respectable looking--no speck of the dirt, no trace of
the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left--I crept
down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low
passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.

It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous
fire.  Hannah was baking.  Prejudices, it is well known, are most
difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened
or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.
Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: latterly she had
begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and
well-dressed, she even smiled.

"What, you have got up!" she said.  "You are better, then.  You may sit
you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will."

She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it.  She bustled about,
examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye.  Turning to
me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly--

"Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?"

I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the
question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered
quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness--

"You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar.  I am no beggar; any more
than yourself or your young ladies."

After a pause she said, "I dunnut understand that: you've like no house,
nor no brass, I guess?"

"The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does not
make a beggar in your sense of the word."

"Are you book-learned?" she inquired presently.

"Yes, very."

"But you've never been to a boarding-school?"

"I was at a boarding-school eight years."

She opened her eyes wide.  "Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for, then?"

"I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again.  What are you
going to do with these gooseberries?" I inquired, as she brought out a
basket of the fruit.

"Mak' 'em into pies."

"Give them to me and I'll pick them."

"Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought."

"But I must do something.  Let me have them."

She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my
dress, "lest," as she said, "I should mucky it."

"Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands," she
remarked.  "Happen ye've been a dressmaker?"

"No, you are wrong.  And now, never mind what I have been: don't trouble
your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we
are."

"Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House."

"And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?"

"Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while.  When he is at
home, he is in his own parish at Morton."

"That village a few miles off?

"Aye."

"And what is he?"

"He is a parson."

I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I
had asked to see the clergyman.  "This, then, was his father's
residence?"

"Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and
gurt (great) grandfather afore him."

"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?"

"Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name."

"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?"

"Yes."

"Their father is dead?"

"Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke."

"They have no mother?"

"The mistress has been dead this mony a year."

"Have you lived with the family long?"

"I've lived here thirty year.  I nursed them all three."

"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant.  I will
say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a
beggar."

She again regarded me with a surprised stare.  "I believe," she said, "I
was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats
goes about, you mun forgie me."

"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from
the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog."

"Well, it was hard: but what can a body do?  I thought more o' th'
childer nor of mysel: poor things!  They've like nobody to tak' care on
'em but me.  I'm like to look sharpish."

I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.

"You munnut think too hardly of me," she again remarked.

"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you why--not so
much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an
impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I
had no 'brass' and no house.  Some of the best people that ever lived
have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not
to consider poverty a crime."

"No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I
wor wrang--but I've clear a different notion on you now to what I had.
You look a raight down dacent little crater."

"That will do--I forgive you now.  Shake hands."

She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile
illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.

Hannah was evidently fond of talking.  While I picked the fruit, and she
made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details
about her deceased master and mistress, and "the childer," as she called
the young people.

Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of
as ancient a family as could be found.  Marsh End had belonged to the
Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, "aboon two
hundred year old--for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to
compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down i' Morton Vale.  But she could
remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers
wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking
into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry."  Still, she allowed, "the
owd maister was like other folk--naught mich out o' t' common way: stark
mad o' shooting, and farming, and sich like."  The mistress was
different.  She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the "bairns"
had taken after her.  There was nothing like them in these parts, nor
ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time
they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak' of their own."  Mr.
St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the
girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as governesses: for
they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of
money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not
rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves.  They
had lived very little at home for a long while, and were only come now to
stay a few weeks on account of their father's death; but they did so like
Marsh End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about.  They had been
in London, and many other grand towns; but they always said there was no
place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other--never
fell out nor "threaped."  She did not know where there was such a family
for being united.

Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two
ladies and their brother were now.

"Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour
to tea."

They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by
the kitchen door.  Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed
through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly
expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to
come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me.

"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said.  "You still
look very pale--and so thin!  Poor child!--poor girl!"

Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove.  She
possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter.  Her whole face
seemed to me full of charm.  Mary's countenance was equally
intelligent--her features equally pretty; but her expression was more
reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant.  Diana looked and
spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently.  It was my
nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers,
and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active
will.

"And what business have you here?" she continued.  "It is not your place.
Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be
free, even to license--but you are a visitor, and must go into the
parlour."

"I am very well here."

"Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour."

"Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary.

"To be sure," added her sister.  "Come, you must be obedient."  And still
holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room.

"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our things
off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our
little moorland home--to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined,
or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing."

She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat
opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand.  I examined first, the
parlour, and then its occupant.

The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet
comfortable, because clean and neat.  The old-fashioned chairs were very
bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass.  A few
strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated
the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and
an ancient set of china.  There was no superfluous ornament in the
room--not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a
lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table:
everything--including the carpet and curtains--looked at once well worn
and well saved.

Mr. St. John--sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the walls,
keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips mutely
sealed--was easy enough to examine.  Had he been a statue instead of a
man, he could not have been easier.  He was young--perhaps from twenty-
eight to thirty--tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a
Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite
an Athenian mouth and chin.  It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes
so near the antique models as did his.  He might well be a little shocked
at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious.  His
eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead,
colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of
fair hair.

This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader?  Yet he whom it
describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding,
an impressible, or even of a placid nature.  Quiescent as he now sat,
there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my
perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or
eager.  He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one
glance, till his sisters returned.  Diana, as she passed in and out, in
the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on the top
of the oven.

"Eat that now," she said: "you must be hungry.  Hannah says you have had
nothing but some gruel since breakfast."

I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen.  Mr. Rivers
now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, fixed
his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me.  There was an unceremonious
directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which
told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted
from the stranger.

"You are very hungry," he said.

"I am, sir."  It is my way--it always was my way, by instinct--ever to
meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.

"It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the
last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the cravings
of your appetite at first.  Now you may eat, though still not
immoderately."

"I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very clumsily-
contrived, unpolished answer.

"No," he said coolly: "when you have indicated to us the residence of
your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home."

"That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being
absolutely without home and friends."

The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no
suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity.  I speak
particularly of the young ladies.  St. John's eyes, though clear enough
in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom.  He
seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's
thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of
keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than
to encourage.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you are completely isolated from
every connection?"

"I do.  Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess
to admittance under any roof in England."

"A most singular position at your age!"

Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the
table before me.  I wondered what he sought there: his words soon
explained the quest.

"You have never been married?  You are a spinster?"

Diana laughed.  "Why, she can't be above seventeen or eighteen years old,
St. John," said she.

"I am near nineteen: but I am not married.  No."

I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating
recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage.  They all saw
the embarrassment and the emotion.  Diana and Mary relieved me by turning
their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the colder and
sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had excited forced
out tears as well as colour.

"Where did you last reside?" he now asked.

"You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured Mary in a low voice; but he
leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and
piercing look.

"The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived, is my
secret," I replied concisely.

"Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both from
St. John and every other questioner," remarked Diana.

"Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you," he
said.  "And you need help, do you not?"

"I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will
put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the remuneration
for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life."

"I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid
you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest.  First, then, tell
me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you _can_ do."

I had now swallowed my tea.  I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; as
much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and
enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily.

"Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked at
me, openly and without diffidence, "you and your sisters have done me a
great service--the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have rescued
me, by your noble hospitality, from death.  This benefit conferred gives
you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent,
on my confidence.  I will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer
you have harboured, as I can tell without compromising my own peace of
mind--my own security, moral and physical, and that of others.

"I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman.  My parents died before I
could know them.  I was brought up a dependant; educated in a charitable
institution.  I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where I
passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacher--Lowood Orphan Asylum,
---shire: you will have heard of it, Mr. Rivers?--the Rev. Robert
Brocklehurst is the treasurer."

"I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school."

"I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess.  I
obtained a good situation, and was happy.  This place I was obliged to
leave four days before I came here.  The reason of my departure I cannot
and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound
incredible.  No blame attached to me: I am as free from culpability as
any one of you three.  Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the
catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a
strange and direful nature.  I observed but two points in planning my
departure--speed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me
everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and
trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to
Whitcross.  To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute.  I
slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without
crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of time did I taste food;
and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the
last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your
door, and took me under the shelter of your roof.  I know all your
sisters have done for me since--for I have not been insensible during my
seeming torpor--and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial
compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity."

"Don't make her talk any more now, St. John," said Diana, as I paused;
"she is evidently not yet fit for excitement.  Come to the sofa and sit
down now, Miss Elliott."

I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the _alias_: I had forgotten
my new name.  Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at
once.

"You said your name was Jane Elliott?" he observed.

"I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be
called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear it, it
sounds strange to me."

"Your real name you will not give?"

"No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would
lead to it, I avoid."

"You are quite right, I am sure," said Diana.  "Now do, brother, let her
be at peace a while."

But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as imperturbably
and with as much acumen as ever.

"You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality--you would
wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters' compassion,
and, above all, with my _charity_ (I am quite sensible of the distinction
drawn, nor do I resent it--it is just): you desire to be independent of
us?"

"I do: I have already said so.  Show me how to work, or how to seek work:
that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the meanest
cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another essay of
the horrors of homeless destitution."

"Indeed you _shall_ stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my
head.  "You _shall_," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative
sincerity which seemed natural to her.

"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr. St. John,
"as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen
bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their casement.  I feel
more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall
endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow.  I am but the
incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort.
And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some
more efficient succour than such as I can offer."

"She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can
do," answered Diana for me; "and you know, St. John, she has no choice of
helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you."

"I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a
servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better," I answered.

"Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly.  "If such is your spirit, I
promise to aid you, in my own time and way."

He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.  I
soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my
present strength would permit.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: For three days and nights Jane stays in bed and they tend to her. When she is finally able to arise, she finds her clothes have all be cleaned and are waiting for her, and she goes downstairs. She there sees Hannah, the older woman, and after a talk they come to an understanding and Jane forgives her for not letting her in, and they become friends. Soon the rest of the household return from their walk to Morton. The two sisters are Diana and Mary Rivers, and the brother is Mr. St. John Rivers. Jane learns that their father has recently died, and that that is why they are all at Moor House, as the house is called. Mr. St. John is the clergyman in Morton, where Jane had gone for help. The household tries to talk to Jane more. She tells them that she will not disclose where she had been before then, but she does tell much of her life, including her stay at Lowood School and that she had been a private governess. She also tells them that her name is an alias, but that she fears disclosure, so will not tell them her real name. She asks Mr. St. John to find her some work, no matter how humble, and he says he will try


prompt:
Chapter: The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them.  In
a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day,
and walk out sometimes.  I could join with Diana and Mary in all their
occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when
and where they would allow me.  There was a reviving pleasure in this
intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time--the pleasure
arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.

I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me;
what they approved, I reverenced.  They loved their sequestered home.  I,
too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its
latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs--all
grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with
yew and holly--and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would
bloom--found a charm both potent and permanent.  They clung to the purple
moors behind and around their dwelling--to the hollow vale into which the
pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound
between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little
pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave
sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-
faced lambs:--they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm
of attachment.  I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its
strength and truth.  I saw the fascination of the locality.  I felt the
consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell
and sweep--on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss,
by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow
granite crag.  These details were just to me what they were to them--so
many pure and sweet sources of pleasure.  The strong blast and the soft
breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset;
the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions,
the same attraction as for them--wound round my faculties the same spell
that entranced theirs.

Indoors we agreed equally well.  They were both more accomplished and
better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of
knowledge they had trodden before me.  I devoured the books they lent me:
then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I
had perused during the day.  Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion:
we coincided, in short, perfectly.

If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.
Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous.  In
her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow,
such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.  I could
talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity
and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest
my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they
sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched.  Diana offered
to teach me German.  I liked to learn of her: I saw the part of
instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited
me no less.  Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection--of the strongest
kind--was the result.  They discovered I could draw: their pencils and
colour-boxes were immediately at my service.  My skill, greater in this
one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them.  Mary would sit and
watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a docile,
intelligent, assiduous pupil she made.  Thus occupied, and mutually
entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.

As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly
between me and his sisters did not extend to him.  One reason of the
distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at
home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the
sick and poor among the scattered population of his parish.

No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or
fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his hat,
and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission
of love or duty--I scarcely know in which light he regarded it.
Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would
expostulate.  He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than
cheerful--

"And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from
these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I
propose to myself?"

Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and some
minutes of apparently mournful meditation.

But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to
friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of
a brooding nature.  Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his
life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity,
that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere
Christian and practical philanthropist.  Often, of an evening, when he
sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading
or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know
not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might
be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye.

I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it
was to his sisters.  He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a
strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection
for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more
of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was
manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their
soothing silence--never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful
delights they could yield.

Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity
of gauging his mind.  I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him
preach in his own church at Morton.  I wish I could describe that sermon:
but it is past my power.  I cannot even render faithfully the effect it
produced on me.

It began calm--and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it
was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal
breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language.
This grew to force--compressed, condensed, controlled.  The heart was
thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: neither were
softened.  Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of
consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic
doctrines--election, predestination, reprobation--were frequent; and each
reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.
When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by
his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to
me--I know not whether equally so to others--that the eloquence to which
I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of
disappointment--where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and
disquieting aspirations.  I was sure St. John Rivers--pure-lived,
conscientious, zealous as he was--had not yet found that peace of God
which passeth all understanding: he had no more found it, I thought, than
had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost
elysium--regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which
possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly.

Meantime a month was gone.  Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House,
and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as
governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each
held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they
were regarded only as humble dependants, and who neither knew nor sought
out their innate excellences, and appreciated only their acquired
accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste
of their waiting-woman.  Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about
the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent
that I should have a vocation of some kind.  One morning, being left
alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the
window-recess--which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of
study--and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what
words to frame my inquiry--for it is at all times difficult to break the
ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his--when he saved me the
trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.

Looking up as I drew near--"You have a question to ask of me?" he said.

"Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer
myself to undertake?"

"I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed
both useful and happy here--as my sisters had evidently become attached
to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure--I deemed it
inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching
departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary."

"And they will go in three days now?" I said.

"Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: Hannah
will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up."

I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first
broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection: his
look denoted abstraction from me and my business.  I was obliged to
recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious
interest to me.

"What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers?  I hope this delay
will not have increased the difficulty of securing it."

"Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and
you to accept."

He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue.  I grew
impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance
fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words
could have done, and with less trouble.

"You need be in no hurry to hear," he said: "let me frankly tell you, I
have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest.  Before I explain,
recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it
must be as the blind man would help the lame.  I am poor; for I find
that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining to
me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the
patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front.  I
am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole descendants of
the race, two earn the dependant's crust among strangers, and the third
considers himself an alien from his native country--not only for life,
but in death.  Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by
the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from
fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that
church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word,
'Rise, follow Me!'"

St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet,
deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of
glance.  He resumed--

"And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of
poverty and obscurity.  _You_ may even think it degrading--for I see now
your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to
the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but
_I_ consider that no service degrades which can better our race.  I hold
that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian
labourer's task of tillage is appointed him--the scantier the meed his
toil brings--the higher the honour.  His, under such circumstances, is
the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the
Apostles--their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself."

"Well?" I said, as he again paused--"proceed."

He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read
my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page.  The
conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his
succeeding observations.

"I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and hold it
for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently
keep the narrow and narrowing--the tranquil, hidden office of English
country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to
repose as that in mine, though of a different kind."

"Do explain," I urged, when he halted once more.

"I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,--how trivial--how
cramping.  I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead,
and that I am my own master.  I shall leave the place probably in the
course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the
utmost for its improvement.  Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had
no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of
progress.  I established one for boys: I mean now to open a second school
for girls.  I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of
two rooms attached to it for the mistress's house.  Her salary will be
thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but
sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter
of the sole rich man in my parish--Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-
factory and iron-foundry in the valley.  The same lady pays for the
education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that
she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own
house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her
having time to discharge in person.  Will you be this mistress?"

He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an
indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing
all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in
what light the lot would appear to me.  In truth it was humble--but then
it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding--but then,
compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent;
and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it
was not ignoble--not unworthy--not mentally degrading, I made my
decision.

"I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my
heart."

"But you comprehend me?" he said.  "It is a village school: your scholars
will be only poor girls--cottagers' children--at the best, farmers'
daughters.  Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all
you will have to teach.  What will you do with your accomplishments?
What, with the largest portion of your mind--sentiments--tastes?"

"Save them till they are wanted.  They will keep."

"You know what you undertake, then?"

"I do."

He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased and
deeply gratified.

"And when will you commence the exercise of your function?"

"I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, next
week."

"Very well: so be it."

He rose and walked through the room.  Standing still, he again looked at
me.  He shook his head.

"What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?" I asked.

"You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!"

"Why?  What is your reason for saying so?"

"I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the
maintenance of an even tenor in life."

"I am not ambitious."

He started at the word "ambitious."  He repeated, "No.  What made you
think of ambition?  Who is ambitious?  I know I am: but how did you find
it out?"

"I was speaking of myself."

"Well, if you are not ambitious, you are--"  He paused.

"What?"

"I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have
misunderstood the word, and been displeased.  I mean, that human
affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you.  I am sure
you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to
devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of stimulus:
any more than I can be content," he added, with emphasis, "to live here
buried in morass, pent in with mountains--my nature, that God gave me,
contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed--made useless.  You
hear now how I contradict myself.  I, who preached contentment with a
humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers
of water in God's service--I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my
restlessness.  Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by
some means."

He left the room.  In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in
the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.

Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached
for leaving their brother and their home.  They both tried to appear as
usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not
be entirely conquered or concealed.  Diana intimated that this would be a
different parting from any they had ever yet known.  It would probably,
as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years: it might be a
parting for life.

"He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves," she said: "natural
affection and feelings more potent still.  St. John looks quiet, Jane;
but he hides a fever in his vitals.  You would think him gentle, yet in
some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my
conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe
decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it.  It is
right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my heart!"  And the tears gushed
to her fine eyes.  Mary bent her head low over her work.

"We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother,"
she murmured.

At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate
purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that "misfortunes never come
singly," and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip
between the cup and the lip.  St. John passed the window reading a
letter.  He entered.

"Our uncle John is dead," said he.

Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings
appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.

"Dead?" repeated Diana.

"Yes."

She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face.  "And what then?" she
demanded, in a low voice.

"What then, Die?" he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature.
"What then?  Why--nothing.  Read."

He threw the letter into her lap.  She glanced over it, and handed it to
Mary.  Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother.  All
three looked at each other, and all three smiled--a dreary, pensive smile
enough.

"Amen!  We can yet live," said Diana at last.

"At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before," remarked
Mary.

"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what _might
have been_," said Mr. Rivers, "and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with
what _is_."

He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out.

For some minutes no one spoke.  Diana then turned to me.

"Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said, "and think us
hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a
relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him.  He was my
mother's brother.  My father and he quarrelled long ago.  It was by his
advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that
ruined him.  Mutual recrimination passed between them: they parted in
anger, and were never reconciled.  My uncle engaged afterwards in more
prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty
thousand pounds.  He was never married, and had no near kindred but
ourselves and one other person, not more closely related than we.  My
father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by
leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has
bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of
thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers,
for the purchase of three mourning rings.  He had a right, of course, to
do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the
receipt of such news.  Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with
a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been
valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do."

This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference
made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters.  The next day I left
Marsh End for Morton.  The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for
distant B-.  In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage:
and so the old grange was abandoned.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Jane's stay at Moor House is quite pleasant. Diana, Mary and she get along very well and have much in common. They loan her books, and she draws for them, and they converse much. Jane does not get along so well with Mr. St. John though, but she explains that he is not much at the house and that his disposition is not like the others'. A month passes since Jane's arrival, and soon the sisters are to return to their jobs as governesses. Jane asks St. John if he had found any work for her, and he says that he had. He tells her that he is opening a school for girls in Morton, and that if she were the mistress of it she would have a house and a housemaid and some money. He feels that it is beneath her station and she will not be very happy with it, but Jane accepts the position. That evening St. John brings home a letter that he had received. He says that their uncle John had died. They explain that they had never met him, but that he had come into a fortune that they thought they might have seen a part of as their uncle never married and had no children. His will however has left all his money to another who is no more closely related than they are. The next day Jane leaves for her house in Morton, and the day after Diana and Mary return to their jobs. Soon after St. John and Hannah close up the house and return to the parsonage