in green all forsook England a hundred years ago. I don't think
either summer or harvest or winter moon will ever shine on their revels
more."

Mrs. Fairfax dropped her knitting, wondering what sort of talk this was,
and remarked that Miss Eyre had been a kind and careful teacher.

"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr.
Rochester. "I shall judge for myself. She began by felling my horse."

"You said Mr. Rochester was not peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax," I remonstrated,
when I rejoined her in her room after putting Adela to bed.

After a time my master's manner towards me changed. It became more
uniform. I never seemed in his way. He did not take fits of chilling
hauteur. When he met me, the encounter seemed welcome; he always had a
word, and sometimes a smile. I felt at times as if he were my relation
rather than my master, and so happy did I become that the blanks of
existence were filled up. He had now been resident eight weeks, though
Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed at the Hall longer than a fortnight.

_II.--The Mystery of the Third Floor_

One night, I hardly know whether I had been sleeping or musing, I
started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious.
It ceased, but my heart beat anxiously; my inward tranquillity was
broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then my
chamber-door was touched as if fingers swept the panels groping a way
along the dark gallery outside. I was chilled with fear. Then I
remembered that it might be Pilot, and the idea calmed me. But it was
fated I should not sleep that night, for at the very keyhole of my
chamber, as it seemed, a demoniac laugh was uttered. My first impulse
was to rise and fasten the bolt, my next to cry: "Who is there?" Ere
long steps retreated up the gallery towards the third floor staircase,
and then all was still.

"Was it Grace Poole?" thought I. I hurried on my frock, and with a
trembling hand opened the door. There, burning outside, left on the
matting of the gallery, was a candle; and the air was filled with smoke,
which rushed in a cloud from Mr. Rochester's room. In an instant I was
within the chamber. Tongues of fire darted round the bed; the curtains
were on fire, and in the midst lay Mr. Rochester, in deep sleep. I shook
him, but he seemed stupefied. Then I rushed to his basin and ewer, and
deluged the bed with water. He woke with the cry: "Is there a flood?
What is it?"

I briefly relate