he said I looked pale and tired. I was glad to
accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling
garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when a child.

Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about--setting
out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting
a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an
occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days.
Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good
looks.

Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit
still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at the
fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my
cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with
some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and
obeyed her as in bygone days.

She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a
person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master,
whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he was
rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly,
and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay company
that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie
listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she relished.

In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my
bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall.
It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked
down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning in
January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered
heart--a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation--to seek the chilly
harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same
hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet;
and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of
the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers,
and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs,
too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

"You shall go into the breakfast-room first," said Bessie, as she
preceded me through the hall; "the young ladies will be there."

In another moment I was within that a