"Wake! wake!" I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him.

Indeed he is—in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and not alone either. I don't know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it.

If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all.

I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward.

Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and solitude I had passed beneath its roof!

Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.

There you are! Come on, if you please.

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.

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

Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray.