Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë
“You cannot now wonder,” continued my master, “that when
CHAPTER XXXVIII—CONCLUSION
you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty
in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision, something
that would melt to silence and annihilation, as the mid-
the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back
READER, I MARRIED HIM. A quiet wedding we had: he and I,
night whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now, I from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house,
thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God!” where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the
He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat knives, and I said—
from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he “Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.”
The housekeeper and her husband were both of that
stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship
were audible.
decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any
“I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without
remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some shrill
me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy
hitherto!”
wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the
Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at
hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air;
shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served and for the same space of time John’s knives also had rest
both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the
homeward.
roast, said only—
“Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!”
A short time after she pursued—”I seed you go out with
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