murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.

The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.

It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner, when little Ad�le, who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed —

“Voil�, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!”

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at