Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now.

She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, "What can the creeping creature want now?"

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not long; of that I was sure.

I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:—I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life,—momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high.

A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away—away—to an indefinite distance—it died.

You—poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.

Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy.

"Soon to be Jane Rochester," he added: "in four weeks, Janet; not a day more. Do you hear that?"

I suppose your love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's ardour extends.

Don't address me as if I were a beauty; I am your plain, Quakerish governess.