“It is come now — I must give it to-night.”

“Then you are going to be married, sir?”

“Ex-act-ly — pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head.”

“Soon, sir?”

“Very soon, my — that is, Miss Eyre: and you’ll remember, Jane, the first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to put my old bachelor’s neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the holy estate of matrimony — to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she’s an extensive armful: but that’s not to the point — one can’t have too much of such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche):