d Thornfield
were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their
dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted
well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.

On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay
Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop
asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:--"Day its fervid fires
had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit.
Where the sun had gone down in simple state--pure of the pomp of
clouds--spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and
furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and
wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own
charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a casino and solitary
star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon.

I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent--that of
a cigar--stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a
handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the
orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it
was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out
from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it
from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from
lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a
giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the
fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such
silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such
shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the
upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising
moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed--not by sound, not
by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.

Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been
yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of
shrub nor flower; it is--I know it well--it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I
look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear
a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is
visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee.
I make for t