t day of my return; for I did
not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to
walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my
box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six
o'clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a road
which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the
haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from
cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue--where blue
was visible--was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin.
The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it--it seemed as if
there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled
vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness.

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once
to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not
to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place
where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. "Mrs.
Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure," said I; "and little
Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very well you
are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you."

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These
affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again
looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they
added--"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more days or
weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!" And then I
strangled a new-born agony--a deformed thing which I could not persuade
myself to own and rear--and ran on.

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers
are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on
their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to
traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full
the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather any; I want to be
at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches
across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see--Mr.
Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have i