by your own account, have been
few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist's dreamland while
you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long
each day?"

"I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them
from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of the
midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply."

"And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?"

"Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my
handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite
powerless to realise."

"Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more,
probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give
it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar. As to
the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must
have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet not
at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what
meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint wind?
There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top. Where did you
see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There! put the drawings away!"

I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his
watch, he said abruptly--

"It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adele sit up
so long? Take her to bed."

Adele went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress,
but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor so
much.

"I wish you all good-night, now," said he, making a movement of the hand
towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and wished
to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my portfolio:
we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so withdrew.

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

"Well, is he?"

"I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt."

"True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to
his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of
temper, allowance should be made."

"Why?"

"Partly because it is his nature--and we can none of us help our nature;
and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and
make his spirit