it better.

Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept
running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could
get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go
downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library,
where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and
made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her "ami,
Monsieur Edouard Fairfax _de_ Rochester," as she dubbed him (I had not
before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had
brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when
his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a little
box in whose contents she had an interest.

"Et cela doit signifier," said she, "qu'il y aura la dedans un cadeau
pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parle
de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n'etait pas
une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale. J'ai dit qu'oui: car
c'est vrai, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?"

I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon
was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. At dark I
allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for,
from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to
the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. Left
alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence:
twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very
shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the
fireside.

In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I
remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when
Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had
been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome thoughts
that were beginning to throng on my solitude.

"Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with
him in the drawing-room this evening," said she: "he has been so much
engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before."

"When is his tea-time?" I inquired.

"Oh, at six o'clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had better
change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here is a
candle."

"Is it necessary to change my frock?"

"Yes, you had better: I always dress for the eveni