a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?”

“St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian profile.”

(Aside.) “Damn him!” — (To me.) “Did you like him, Jane?”

“Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before.”

I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake.

“Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?”