tting
motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies entered, she
rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with
gravity--

"Bon jour, mesdames."

And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed,
"Oh, what a little puppet!"

Lady Lynn had remarked, "It is Mr. Rochester's ward, I suppose--the
little French girl he was speaking of."

Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss.

Amy and Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously--"What a love of a
child!"

And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced
between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English;
absorbing not only the young ladies' attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton
and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart's content.

At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in
the shade--if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the
window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The
collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very
imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some
young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; and
Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of the
district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite white, his eyebrows and
whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of a
"pere noble de theatre." Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall;
like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary's apathetic and
listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of
blood or vigour of brain.

And where is Mr. Rochester?

He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I
try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles, on the meshes
of the purse I am forming--I wish to think only of the work I have in my
hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap;
whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the
moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he deemed,
an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my
face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to
overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached him
at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my
relative positions? Yet now, how