prompt:
Chapter: My home, then, when I at last find a home,--is a cottage; a little room
with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs
and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes,
and a set of tea-things in delf.  Above, a chamber of the same dimensions
as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too
large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the kindness of my
gentle and generous friends has increased that, by a modest stock of such
things as are necessary.

It is evening.  I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little
orphan who serves me as a handmaid.  I am sitting alone on the hearth.
This morning, the village school opened.  I had twenty scholars.  But
three of the number can read: none write or cipher.  Several knit, and a
few sew a little.  They speak with the broadest accent of the district.
At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other's
language.  Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as
ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a
disposition that pleases me.  I must not forget that these coarsely-clad
little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest
genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement,
intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in
those of the best-born.  My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I
shall find some happiness in discharging that office.  Much enjoyment I
do not expect in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I
regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live
on from day to day.

Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder
bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon?  Not to deceive
myself, I must reply--No: I felt desolate to a degree.  I felt--yes,
idiot that I am--I felt degraded.  I doubted I had taken a step which
sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence.  I was
weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I
heard and saw round me.  But let me not hate and despise myself too much
for these feelings; I know them to be wrong--that is a great step gained;
I shall strive to overcome them.  To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the
better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite
subdued.  In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing
progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute
gratification for disgust.

Meantime, let me ask myself one question--Which is better?--To have
surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort--no
struggle;--but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on
the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the
luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr.
Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time--for he
would--oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while.  He _did_ love
me--no one will ever love me so again.  I shall never more know the sweet
homage given to beauty, youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall
I seem to possess these charms.  He was fond and proud of me--it is what
no man besides will ever be.--But where am I wandering, and what am I
saying, and above all, feeling?  Whether is it better, I ask, to be a
slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one
hour--suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the
next--or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy
mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and
scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment.  God
directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my
door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet
fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile
from the village.  The birds were singing their last strains--

   "The air was mild, the dew was balm."

While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself
ere long weeping--and why?  For the doom which had reft me from adhesion
to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and
fatal fury--consequences of my departure--which might now, perhaps, be
dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate
restoration thither.  At this thought, I turned my face aside from the
lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton--I say _lonely_, for in that
bend of it visible to me there was no building apparent save the church
and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the
roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived.  I
hid my eyes, and leant my head against the stone frame of my door; but
soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the
meadow beyond it made me look up.  A dog--old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer,
as I saw in a moment--was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John
himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave
almost to displeasure, fixed on me.  I asked him to come in.

"No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters
left for you.  I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper."

I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was.  He examined my face, I
thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were
doubtless very visible upon it.

"Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected?" he
asked.

"Oh, no!  On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my
scholars very well."

"But perhaps your accommodations--your cottage--your furniture--have
disappointed your expectations?  They are, in truth, scanty enough; but--"
I interrupted--

"My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and
commodious.  All I see has made me thankful, not despondent.  I am not
absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a
carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing--I
was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a
business.  I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends;
the bounty of my lot.  I do not repine."

"But you feel solitude an oppression?  The little house there behind you
is dark and empty."

"I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less
to grow impatient under one of loneliness."

"Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your
good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the
vacillating fears of Lot's wife.  What you had left before I saw you, of
course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation
which would incline you to look back: pursue your present career
steadily, for some months at least."

"It is what I mean to do," I answered.  St. John continued--

"It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent
of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience.  God has
given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our
energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get--when our will
strains after a path we may not follow--we need neither starve from
inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another
nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to
taste--and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road
as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if
rougher than it.

"A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had
made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to
death.  I burnt for the more active life of the world--for the more
exciting toils of a literary career--for the destiny of an artist,
author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of
a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a
luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice.  I considered; my
life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die.  After a season
of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped
existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds--my powers
heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread
their wings, and mount beyond ken.  God had an errand for me; to bear
which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and
eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator,
were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.

"A missionary I resolved to be.  From that moment my state of mind
changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving
nothing of bondage but its galling soreness--which time only can heal.  My
father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I have
not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a
successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings
broken through or cut asunder--a last conflict with human weakness, in
which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I _will_
overcome--and I leave Europe for the East."

He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, when
he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at which I
looked too.  Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the
field to the wicket.  We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the
water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and
scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell,
exclaimed--

"Good evening, Mr. Rivers.  And good evening, old Carlo.  Your dog is
quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears
and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have
your back towards me now."

It was true.  Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical
accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood
yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the
speaker had surprised him--his arm resting on the gate, his face directed
towards the west.  He turned at last, with measured deliberation.  A
vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side.  There appeared,
within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white--a youthful, graceful
form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo,
it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under
his glance a face of perfect beauty.  Perfect beauty is a strong
expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever
the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as
ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified,
in this instance, the term.  No charm was wanting, no defect was
perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes
shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark,
and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so
soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the
white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of
tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too,
ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw;
the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses--all
advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were
fully hers.  I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I admired her
with my whole heart.  Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood;
and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed
this, her darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.

What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel?  I naturally asked
myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as
naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance.  He had
already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft
of daisies which grew by the wicket.

"A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone," he said, as he
crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.

"Oh, I only came home from S-" (she mentioned the name of a large town
some twenty miles distant) "this afternoon.  Papa told me you had opened
your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my
bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?"
pointing to me.

"It is," said St. John.

"Do you think you shall like Morton?" she asked of me, with a direct and
naive simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like.

"I hope I shall.  I have many inducements to do so."

"Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?"

"Quite."

"Do you like your house?"

"Very much."

"Have I furnished it nicely?"

"Very nicely, indeed."

"And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?"

"You have indeed.  She is teachable and handy."  (This then, I thought,
is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of fortune,
as well as in those of nature!  What happy combination of the planets
presided over her birth, I wonder?)

"I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes," she added.  "It will
be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change.  Mr.
Rivers, I have been _so_ gay during my stay at S-.  Last night, or rather
this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock.  The ---th regiment are
stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable
men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor
merchants to shame."

It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper
lip curled a moment.  His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed,
and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the
laughing girl gave him this information.  He lifted his gaze, too, from
the daisies, and turned it on her.  An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning
gaze it was.  She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well
became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes.

As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo.  "Poor
Carlo loves me," said she.  "_He_ is not stern and distant to his
friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent."

As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young
and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face.  I saw his
solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion.
Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she
for a woman.  His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of
despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a
vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty.  But he curbed it, I think,
as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed.  He responded neither by
word nor movement to the gentle advances made him.

"Papa says you never come to see us now," continued Miss Oliver, looking
up.  "You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall.  He is alone this evening,
and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?"

"It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver," answered St.
John.

"Not a seasonable hour!  But I declare it is.  It is just the hour when
papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business
to occupy him.  Now, Mr. Rivers, _do_ come.  Why are you so very shy, and
so very sombre?"  She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of
her own.

"I forgot!" she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if
shocked at herself.  "I am so giddy and thoughtless!  _Do_ excuse me.  It
had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for
joining in my chatter.  Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is
shut up, and you are so lonely.  I am sure I pity you.  Do come and see
papa."

"Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night."

Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort
it cost him thus to refuse.

"Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any
longer: the dew begins to fall.  Good evening!"

She held out her hand.  He just touched it.  "Good evening!" he repeated,
in a voice low and hollow as an echo.  She turned, but in a moment
returned.

"Are you well?" she asked.  Well might she put the question: his face was
blanched as her gown.

"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate.  She went
one way; he another.  She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped
fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned
at all.

This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from
exclusive meditation on my own.  Diana Rivers had designated her brother
"inexorable as death."  She had not exaggerated.

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

completion: At Morton, the wealthy heiress Rosamond Oliver provides Jane with a cottage in which to live. Jane begins teaching, but to her own regret, she finds the work degrading and disappointing. While on a visit to Jane, St. John reveals that he, too, used to feel that he had made the wrong career choice, until one day he heard God's call. Now he plans to become a missionary. The beautiful Rosamond Oliver then appears, interrupting St. John and Jane's conversation. From their interaction, Jane believes that Rosamond and St. John are in love


prompt:
Chapter: I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and faithfully
as I could.  It was truly hard work at first.  Some time elapsed before,
with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature.
Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me
hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon found I
was mistaken.  There was a difference amongst them as amongst the
educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference
rapidly developed itself.  Their amazement at me, my language, my rules,
and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping
rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough.  Many showed themselves
obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few
examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of
excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration.  These
soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their persons
neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly
manners.  The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even
surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I began
personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me.  I had
amongst my scholars several farmers' daughters: young women grown,
almost.  These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught
the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of
needlework.  I found estimable characters amongst them--characters
desirous of information and disposed for improvement--with whom I passed
many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes.  Their parents then (the
farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions.  There was an enjoyment
in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a
consideration--a scrupulous regard to their feelings--to which they were
not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and
benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it
made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received.

I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood.  Whenever I went out, I
heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with friendly
smiles.  To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of
working people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;" serene
inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray.  At this period of my life,
my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection:
and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful
existence--after a day passed in honourable exertion amongst my scholars,
an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone--I used to rush
into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the
ideal, the stirring, the stormy--dreams where, amidst unusual scenes,
charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still
again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and
then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye,
touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him--the hope of
passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first
force and fire.  Then I awoke.  Then I recalled where I was, and how
situated.  Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering;
and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and
heard the burst of passion.  By nine o'clock the next morning I was
punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady
duties of the day.

Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me.  Her call at the
school was generally made in the course of her morning ride.  She would
canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant.
Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with
her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls
that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be
imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide
through the dazzled ranks of the village children.  She generally came at
the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechising
lesson.  Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the visitress pierce the young
pastor's heart.  A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance,
even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the
door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming
features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in
their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger
than working muscle or darting glance could indicate.

Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could not,
conceal it from her.  In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went
up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his
face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn.  He seemed to say, with
his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, "I love
you, and I know you prefer me.  It is not despair of success that keeps
me dumb.  If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it.  But that
heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it.
It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed."

And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would
soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from
his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic
and so martyr-like.  St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to
follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give
one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one
hope of the true, eternal Paradise.  Besides, he could not bind all that
he had in his nature--the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest--in
the limits of a single passion.  He could not--he would not--renounce his
wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale
Hall.  I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his
reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.

Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage.  I
had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise:
she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly
selfish.  She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely
spoilt.  She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it,
when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness),
but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth;
ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she was
very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me;
but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive.  A very
different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters
of St. John.  Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except
that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer
affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult
acquaintance.

She had taken an amiable caprice to me.  She said I was like Mr. Rivers,
only, certainly, she allowed, "not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a
nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel."  I was, however,
good, clever, composed, and firm, like him.  I was a _lusus naturae_, she
affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous history,
if known, would make a delightful romance.

One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless
yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the
table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books,
a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my
drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty
little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from
nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors.  She
was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight.

"Had I done these pictures?  Did I know French and German?  What a
love--what a miracle I was!  I drew better than her master in the first
school in S-.  Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?"

"With pleasure," I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the
idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model.  She had then on a
dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament
was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the
wild grace of natural curls.  I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew
a careful outline.  I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and,
as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit another
day.

She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself
accompanied her next evening--a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and
grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright
flower near a hoary turret.  He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud
personage; but he was very kind to me.  The sketch of Rosamond's portrait
pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of it.  He
insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale
Hall.

I went.  I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant
evidences of wealth in the proprietor.  Rosamond was full of glee and
pleasure all the time I stayed.  Her father was affable; and when he
entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms
his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he only
feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and
would soon quit it for one more suitable.

"Indeed," cried Rosamond, "she is clever enough to be a governess in a
high family, papa."

I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the
land.  Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers--of the Rivers family--with great
respect.  He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the
ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to
them; that even now he considered the representative of that house might,
if he liked, make an alliance with the best.  He accounted it a pity that
so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going
out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away.  It
appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of
Rosamond's union with St. John.  Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young
clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred profession as sufficient
compensation for the want of fortune.

It was the 5th of November, and a holiday.  My little servant, after
helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a
penny for her aid.  All about me was spotless and bright--scoured floor,
polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs.  I had also made myself neat, and
had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.

The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my
palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier
occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature.  The head was
finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to
shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips--a soft curl
here and there to the tresses--a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash
under the azured eyelid.  I was absorbed in the execution of these nice
details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John
Rivers.

"I am come to see how you are spending your holiday," he said.  "Not, I
hope, in thought?  No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel
lonely.  You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up
wonderfully so far.  I have brought you a book for evening solace," and
he laid on the table a new publication--a poem: one of those genuine
productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days--the
golden age of modern literature.  Alas! the readers of our era are less
favoured.  But courage!  I will not pause either to accuse or repine.  I
know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power
over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence,
their presence, their liberty and strength again one day.  Powerful
angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble
ones weep over their destruction.  Poetry destroyed?  Genius banished?
No!  Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought.  No; they
not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence
spread everywhere, you would be in hell--the hell of your own meanness.

While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of "Marmion" (for
"Marmion" it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing.  His tall
figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing.  I looked up at
him: he shunned my eye.  I knew his thoughts well, and could read his
heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I had then
temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination to do
him some good, if I could.

"With all his firmness and self-control," thought I, "he tasks himself
too far: locks every feeling and pang within--expresses, confesses,
imparts nothing.  I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about
this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make
him talk."

I said first, "Take a chair, Mr. Rivers."  But he answered, as he always
did, that he could not stay.  "Very well," I responded, mentally, "stand
if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude is
at least as bad for you as it is for me.  I'll try if I cannot discover
the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in that marble
breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy."

"Is this portrait like?" I asked bluntly.

"Like!  Like whom?  I did not observe it closely."

"You did, Mr. Rivers."

He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me
astonished.  "Oh, that is nothing yet," I muttered within.  "I don't mean
to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I'm prepared to go to
considerable lengths."  I continued, "You observed it closely and
distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again," and I
rose and placed it in his hand.

"A well-executed picture," he said; "very soft, clear colouring; very
graceful and correct drawing."

"Yes, yes; I know all that.  But what of the resemblance?  Who is it
like?"

Mastering some hesitation, he answered, "Miss Oliver, I presume."

"Of course.  And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will
promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very
picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you.  I
don't wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would
deem worthless."

He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer he
held it, the more he seemed to covet it.  "It is like!" he murmured; "the
eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect.  It
smiles!"

"Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting?  Tell
me that.  When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would
it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or would the
sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?"

He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute,
disturbed: he again surveyed the picture.

"That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be judicious
or wise is another question."

Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her
father was not likely to oppose the match, I--less exalted in my views
than St. John--had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate
their union.  It seemed to me that, should he become the possessor of Mr.
Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much good with it as if he went
and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to waste, under a
tropical sun.  With this persuasion I now answered--

"As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to
take to yourself the original at once."

By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table before
him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it.  I
discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity.  I saw
even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed
unapproachable--to hear it thus freely handled--was beginning to be felt
by him as a new pleasure--an unhoped-for relief.  Reserved people often
really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than
the expansive.  The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to
"burst" with boldness and good-will into "the silent sea" of their souls
is often to confer on them the first of obligations.

"She likes you, I am sure," said I, as I stood behind his chair, "and her
father respects you.  Moreover, she is a sweet girl--rather thoughtless;
but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her.  You
ought to marry her."

"_Does_ she like me?" he asked.

"Certainly; better than she likes any one else.  She talks of you
continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so
often."

"It is very pleasant to hear this," he said--"very: go on for another
quarter of an hour."  And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon
the table to measure the time.

"But where is the use of going on," I asked, "when you are probably
preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to
fetter your heart?"

"Don't imagine such hard things.  Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am
doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and
overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and
with such labour prepared--so assiduously sown with the seeds of good
intentions, of self-denying plans.  And now it is deluged with a
nectarous flood--the young germs swamped--delicious poison cankering
them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at
Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with
her sweet voice--gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has
copied so well--smiling at me with these coral lips.  She is mine--I am
hers--this present life and passing world suffice to me.  Hush! say
nothing--my heart is full of delight--my senses are entranced--let the
time I marked pass in peace."

I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood
silent.  Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid
the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.

"Now," said he, "that little space was given to delirium and delusion.  I
rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck
voluntarily under her yoke of flowers.  I tasted her cup.  The pillow was
burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her
promises are hollow--her offers false: I see and know all this."

I gazed at him in wonder.

"It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so
wildly--with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of
which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating--I experience at
the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a
good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should
discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months'
rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret.  This I know."

"Strange indeed!" I could not help ejaculating.

"While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her charms,
something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such
that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to--co-operate in nothing
I undertook.  Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle?  Rosamond
a missionary's wife?  No!"

"But you need not be a missionary.  You might relinquish that scheme."

"Relinquish!  What! my vocation?  My great work?  My foundation laid on
earth for a mansion in heaven?  My hopes of being numbered in the band
who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their
race--of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance--of substituting
peace for war--freedom for bondage--religion for superstition--the hope
of heaven for the fear of hell?  Must I relinquish that?  It is dearer
than the blood in my veins.  It is what I have to look forward to, and to
live for."

After a considerable pause, I said--"And Miss Oliver?  Are her
disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?"

"Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a
month, my image will be effaced from her heart.  She will forget me; and
will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I
should do."

"You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict.  You are
wasting away."

"No.  If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet
unsettled--my departure, continually procrastinated.  Only this morning,
I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so
long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come
yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six."

"You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the
schoolroom."

Again the surprised expression crossed his face.  He had not imagined
that a woman would dare to speak so to a man.  For me, I felt at home in
this sort of discourse.  I could never rest in communication with strong,
discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed
the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of
confidence, and won a place by their heart's very hearthstone.

"You are original," said he, "and not timid.  There is something brave in
your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure
you that you partially misinterpret my emotions.  You think them more
profound and potent than they are.  You give me a larger allowance of
sympathy than I have a just claim to.  When I colour, and when I shade
before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself.  I scorn the weakness.  I know
it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion
of the soul.  _That_ is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths
of a restless sea.  Know me to be what I am--a cold hard man."

I smiled incredulously.

"You have taken my confidence by storm," he continued, "and now it is
much at your service.  I am simply, in my original state--stripped of
that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity--a
cold, hard, ambitious man.  Natural affection only, of all the
sentiments, has permanent power over me.  Reason, and not feeling, is my
guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more
than others, insatiable.  I honour endurance, perseverance, industry,
talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and
mount to lofty eminence.  I watch your career with interest, because I
consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not
because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you
still suffer."

"You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher," I said.

"No.  There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I
believe; and I believe the Gospel.  You missed your epithet.  I am not a
pagan, but a Christian philosopher--a follower of the sect of Jesus.  As
His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines.  I
advocate them: I am sworn to spread them.  Won in youth to religion, she
has cultivated my original qualities thus:--From the minute germ, natural
affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy.  From
the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of
the Divine justice.  Of the ambition to win power and renown for my
wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master's kingdom;
to achieve victories for the standard of the cross.  So much has religion
done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning
and training nature.  But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be
eradicated 'till this mortal shall put on immortality.'"

Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my
palette.  Once more he looked at the portrait.

"She _is_ lovely," he murmured.  "She is well named the Rose of the
World, indeed!"

"And may I not paint one like it for you?"

"_Cui bono_?  No."

He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was
accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from
being sullied.  What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was
impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye.  He took it
up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me,
inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance that seemed
to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress; for it
traversed all, quick, keen as lightning.  His lips parted, as if to
speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw
him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin.  It disappeared in
his glove; and, with one hasty nod and "good-afternoon," he vanished.

"Well!" I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, "that caps the
globe, however!"

I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few
dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil.  I
pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and
being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon
forgot it.

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

completion: Jane's students become more familiar and endeared to her, and Jane becomes quite popular among them. At night, though, she has troubling nightmares that involve Rochester. Jane continues to pay attention to the relationship between St. John and Rosamond, who often visits the school when she knows St. John will be there. Rosamond asks Jane to draw her portrait, and as she is working on it one day, St. John pays her a visit. He gives her a new book of poetry and looks at the drawing. She offers to draw him a duplicate, and then boldly declares that he ought to marry Rosamond. St. John admits that he loves her and is tempted by her beauty, but he explains that he refuses to allow worldly affection to interfere with his holy duties. The flirtatious, silly, and shallow Rosamond would make a terrible wife for a missionary. Suddenly, St. John notices something on the edge of Jane's paper and tears off a tiny piece--Jane is not certain why. With a peculiar look on his face, he hurries from the room


prompt:
Chapter: When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm
continued all night.  The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding
falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable.  I
had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from
blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on
the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle,
took down "Marmion," and beginning--

   "Day set on Norham's castled steep,
   And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
      And Cheviot's mountains lone;
   The massive towers, the donjon keep,
   The flanking walls that round them sweep,
      In yellow lustre shone"--

I soon forgot storm in music.

I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door.  No; it was St.
John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen
hurricane--the howling darkness--and stood before me: the cloak that
covered his tall figure all white as a glacier.  I was almost in
consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up
vale that night.

"Any ill news?" I demanded.  "Has anything happened?"

"No.  How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his cloak
and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again coolly pushed
the mat which his entrance had deranged.  He stamped the snow from his
boots.

"I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must excuse
me for once."  Then he approached the fire.  "I have had hard work to get
here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame.
"One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet."

"But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying.

"Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask
it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my
mute books and empty rooms.  Besides, since yesterday I have experienced
the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is
impatient to hear the sequel."

He sat down.  I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I
began to fear his wits were touched.  If he were insane, however, his was
a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that
handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did
just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the
firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved
me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved.
I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend;
but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking.
It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face.  A perhaps
uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say--

"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that
you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own
health."

"Not at all," said he: "I care for myself when necessary.  I am well now.
What do you see amiss in me?"

This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that
my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous.  I was
silenced.

He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye
dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say something,
I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which
was behind him.

"No, no!" he responded shortly and somewhat testily.

"Well," I reflected, "if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll let you
alone now, and return to my book."

So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of "Marmion."  He soon
stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out a
morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in silence,
folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation.  It was vain to try to
read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in
impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk
I would.

"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?"

"Not since the letter I showed you a week ago."

"There has not been any change made about your own arrangements?  You
will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?"

"I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me."  Baffled so
far, I changed my ground.  I bethought myself to talk about the school
and my scholars.

"Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this
morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry
Close--they would have come to-day but for the snow."

"Indeed!"

"Mr. Oliver pays for two."

"Does he?"

"He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas."

"I know."

"Was it your suggestion?"

"No."

"Whose, then?"

"His daughter's, I think."

"It is like her: she is so good-natured."

"Yes."

Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes.  It
aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.

"Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire," he said.

Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.

"Half-an-hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear the
sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed
by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting you into a listener.
Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound
somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often regain a degree
of freshness when they pass through new lips.  For the rest, whether
trite or novel, it is short.

"Twenty years ago, a poor curate--never mind his name at this moment--fell
in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and
married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently
disowned her immediately after the wedding.  Before two years passed, the
rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab.
(I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge
churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown
manufacturing town in ---shire.)  They left a daughter, which, at its
very birth, Charity received in her lap--cold as that of the snow-drift I
almost stuck fast in to-night.  Charity carried the friendless thing to
the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-
law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead.  You start--did
you hear a noise?  I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the
rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it
repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by rats.--To
proceed.  Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it was happy or
not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at the end of
that time she transferred it to a place you know--being no other than
Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself.  It seems her career
there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a teacher, like
yourself--really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history
and yours--she left it to be a governess: there, again, your fates were
analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr.
Rochester."

"Mr. Rivers!" I interrupted.

"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a while: I
have nearly finished; hear me to the end.  Of Mr. Rochester's character I
know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable
marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered he
had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic.  What his subsequent conduct and
proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event
transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was
discovered she was gone--no one could tell when, where, or how.  She had
left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had
been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of
information could be gathered respecting her.  Yet that she should be
found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put
in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a
solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted.  Is it not an
odd tale?"

"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you surely can
tell it me--what of Mr. Rochester?  How and where is he?  What is he
doing?  Is he well?"

"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never mentions
him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to.
You should rather ask the name of the governess--the nature of the event
which requires her appearance."

"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then?  Did no one see Mr. Rochester?"

"I suppose not."

"But they wrote to him?"

"Of course."

"And what did he say?  Who has his letters?"

"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr.
Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed 'Alice Fairfax.'"

I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he had
in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to
some former haunt on the Continent.  And what opiate for his severe
sufferings--what object for his strong passions--had he sought there?  I
dared not answer the question.  Oh, my poor master--once almost my
husband--whom I had often called "my dear Edward!"

"He must have been a bad man," observed Mr. Rivers.

"You don't know him--don't pronounce an opinion upon him," I said, with
warmth.

"Very well," he answered quietly: "and indeed my head is otherwise
occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish.  Since you won't ask
the governess's name, I must tell it of my own accord.  Stay!  I have it
here--it is always more satisfactory to see important points written
down, fairly committed to black and white."

And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought
through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of
paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of
ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the
portrait-cover.  He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced
in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words "JANE EYRE"--the work
doubtless of some moment of abstraction.

"Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, "the advertisements
demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.--I confess I had my
suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once
resolved into certainty.  You own the name and renounce the _alias_?"

"Yes--yes; but where is Mr. Briggs?  He perhaps knows more of Mr.
Rochester than you do."

"Briggs is in London.  I should doubt his knowing anything at all about
Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested.  Meantime,
you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why
Mr. Briggs sought after you--what he wanted with you."

"Well, what did he want?"

"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that
he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich--merely
that--nothing more."

"I!--rich?"

"Yes, you, rich--quite an heiress."

Silence succeeded.

"You must prove your identity of course," resumed St. John presently: "a
step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate
possession.  Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the
will and the necessary documents."

Here was a new card turned up!  It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted
in a moment from indigence to wealth--a very fine thing; but not a matter
one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once.  And then there
are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: _this_
is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its
associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same.
One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a
fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business;
on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain
ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words,
Death, Funeral.  My uncle I had heard was dead--my only relative; ever
since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one
day seeing him: now, I never should.  And then this money came only to
me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self.  It was a
grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious--yes, I felt
that--that thought swelled my heart.

"You unbend your forehead at last," said Mr. Rivers.  "I thought Medusa
had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone.  Perhaps now you
will ask how much you are worth?"

"How much am I worth?"

"Oh, a trifle!  Nothing of course to speak of--twenty thousand pounds, I
think they say--but what is that?"

"Twenty thousand pounds?"

Here was a new stunner--I had been calculating on four or five thousand.
This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I had
never heard laugh before, laughed now.

"Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your
crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast."

"It is a large sum--don't you think there is a mistake?"

"No mistake at all."

"Perhaps you have read the figures wrong--it may be two thousand!"

"It is written in letters, not figures,--twenty thousand."

I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical
powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for
a hundred.  Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.

"If it were not such a very wild night," he said, "I would send Hannah
down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left
alone.  But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I:
her legs are not quite so long: so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows.
Good-night."

He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me.  "Stop one
minute!" I cried.

"Well?"

"It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he
knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way
place, had the power to aid in my discovery."

"Oh!  I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed to
about odd matters."  Again the latch rattled.

"No; that does not satisfy me!" I exclaimed: and indeed there was
something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of
allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.

"It is a very strange piece of business," I added; "I must know more
about it."

"Another time."

"No; to-night!--to-night!" and as he turned from the door, I placed
myself between it and him.  He looked rather embarrassed.

"You certainly shall not go till you have told me all," I said.

"I would rather not just now."

"You shall!--you must!"

"I would rather Diana or Mary informed you."

Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it
must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.

"But I apprised you that I was a hard man," said he, "difficult to
persuade."

"And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off."

{And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off: p369.jpg}

"And then," he pursued, "I am cold: no fervour infects me."

"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice.  The blaze there has thawed
all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my
floor, and made it like a trampled street.  As you hope ever to be
forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a
sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know."

"Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your
perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping.  Besides, you must
know some day,--as well now as later.  Your name is Jane Eyre?"

"Of course: that was all settled before."

"You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?--that I was
christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"

"No, indeed!  I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your
initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I
never asked for what name it stood.  But what then?  Surely--"

I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express,
the thought that rushed upon me--that embodied itself,--that, in a
second, stood out a strong, solid probability.  Circumstances knit
themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been
lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,--every
ring was perfect, the connection complete.  I knew, by instinct, how the
matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect
the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his
explanation.

"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who
married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq.,
merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira.  Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's
solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's death, and
to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman's
orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never
forgiven, between him and my father.  He wrote again a few weeks since,
to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything of
her.  A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find
her out.  You know the rest."  Again he was going, but I set my back
against the door.

"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath and
reflect."  I paused--he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed
enough.  I resumed--

"Your mother was my father's sister?"

"Yes."

"My aunt, consequently?"

He bowed.

"My uncle John was your uncle John?  You, Diana, and Mary are his
sister's children, as I am his brother's child?"

"Undeniably."

"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from
the same source?"

"We are cousins; yes."

I surveyed him.  It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud
of,--one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that,
when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine
affection and admiration.  The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the
wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House
kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair,
were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found
me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation.  Glorious
discovery to a lonely wretch!  This was wealth indeed!--wealth to the
heart!--a mine of pure, genial affections.  This was a blessing, bright,
vivid, and exhilarating;--not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and
welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight.  I now clapped
my hands in sudden joy--my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.

"Oh, I am glad!--I am glad!" I exclaimed.

St. John smiled.  "Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue
trifles?" he asked.  "You were serious when I told you you had got a
fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited."

"What can you mean?  It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and
don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three relations,--or
two, if you don't choose to be counted,--are born into my world
full-grown.  I say again, I am glad!"

I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the
thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle
them:--thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere
long.  I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending
stars,--every one lit me to a purpose or delight.  Those who had saved my
life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit.
They were under a yoke,--I could free them: they were scattered,--I could
reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be
theirs too.  Were we not four?  Twenty thousand pounds shared equally
would be five thousand each, justice--enough and to spare: justice would
be done,--mutual happiness secured.  Now the wealth did not weigh on me:
now it was not a mere bequest of coin,--it was a legacy of life, hope,
enjoyment.

How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot
tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me,
and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it.  He also advised me
to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and
distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again.

"Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said, "and tell them to come home
directly.  Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with a
thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well."

"Tell me where I can get you a glass of water," said St. John; "you must
really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings."

"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you?  Will
it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down
like an ordinary mortal?"

"You wander: your head becomes confused.  I have been too abrupt in
communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength."

"Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it
is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand."

"Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should
comprehend better."

"Explain!  What is there to explain?  You cannot fail to see that twenty
thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew
and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each?  What I
want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of the
fortune that has accrued to them."

"To you, you mean."

"I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any
other.  I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly
ungrateful.  Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections.  I
like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary,
and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary.  It would please and
benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me
to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice,
though it might in law.  I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely
superfluous to me.  Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about
it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the point at once."

"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a
matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid."

"Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice of
the case?"

"I _do_ see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom.  Besides,
the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his own efforts;
he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to you.  After all,
justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear conscience,
consider it absolutely your own."

"With me," said I, "it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of
conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an
opportunity of doing so.  Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a
year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a
glimpse--that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to
myself lifelong friends."

"You think so now," rejoined St. John, "because you do not know what it
is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot form a notion
of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it
would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to
you: you cannot--"

"And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine the craving I have for
fraternal and sisterly love.  I never had a home, I never had brothers or
sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me
and own me, are you?"

"Jane, I will be your brother--my sisters will be your sisters--without
stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights."

"Brother?  Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues!  Sisters?  Yes;
slaving amongst strangers!  I, wealthy--gorged with gold I never earned
and do not merit!  You, penniless!  Famous equality and fraternisation!
Close union!  Intimate attachment!"

"But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may
be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you may marry."

"Nonsense, again!  Marry!  I don't want to marry, and never shall marry."

"That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the
excitement under which you labour."

"It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse are my
inclinations to the bare thought of marriage.  No one would take me for
love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money
speculation.  And I do not want a stranger--unsympathising, alien,
different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-
feeling.  Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the words I
was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them sincerely."

"I think I can.  I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know on
what my affection for them is grounded,--respect for their worth and
admiration of their talents.  You too have principle and mind: your
tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your presence is always
agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already for some time found
a salutary solace.  I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my
heart for you, as my third and youngest sister."

"Thank you: that contents me for to-night.  Now you had better go; for if
you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mistrustful
scruple."

"And the school, Miss Eyre?  It must now be shut up, I suppose?"

"No.  I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute."

He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave.

I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I
used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished.  My task
was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved--as my cousins saw
at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just
division of the property--as they must in their own hearts have felt the
equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately conscious
that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do--they
yielded at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration.
The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both coincided in
my opinion: I carried my point.  The instruments of transfer were drawn
out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed of a competency.

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

completion: One snowy night, Jane sits reading Marmion when St. John appears at the door. Appearing troubled, he tells Jane the story of an orphan girl who became the governess at Thornfield Hall, then disappeared after nearly marrying Edward Rochester: this runaway governess's name is Jane Eyre. Until this point, Jane has been cautious not to reveal her past and has given the Rivers a false name. Thus although it is clear that St. John suspects her of being the woman about whom he speaks, she does not immediately identify herself to him. He says that he has received a letter from a solicitor named Mr. Briggs intimating that it is extremely important that this Jane Eyre be found. Jane is only interested in whether Mr. Briggs has sent news of Rochester, but St. John says that Rochester's well-being is not at issue: Jane Eyre must be found because her uncle, John Eyre, has died, leaving her the vast fortune of 20,000 pounds. Jane reveals herself to be Jane Eyre, knowing that St. John has guessed already. She asks him how he knew. He shows her the scrap of paper he tore from her drawing the previous day: it is her signature. She then asks why Mr. Briggs would have sent him a letter about her at all. St. John explains that though he did not realize it before, he is her cousin: her Uncle John was his Uncle John, and his name is St. John Eyre Rivers. Jane is overjoyed to have found a family at long last, and she decides to divide her inheritance between her cousins and herself evenly, so that they each will inherit 5,000 pounds