Jane Eyre - Pennsylvania State University

Charlotte Brontë
Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at ently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated
times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little sur-
could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse prise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and be-
of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, come acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend’s
confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at inter- dislike of the burning heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons
vals. These last were discussing the stranger; they both called of that region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller:
him “a beautiful man.” Louisa said he was “a love of a crea- Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the continent of Euture,”
and she “adored him;” and Mary instanced his “pretty rope had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard
little mouth, and nice nose,” as her ideal of the charming. a hint given of visits to more distant shores.
“And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!” cried I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a some-
Louisa,—”so smooth—none of those frowning irregularities what unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr.
I dislike so much; and such a placid eye and smile!” Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked
And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its
them to the other side of the room, to settle some point about flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The
the deferred excursion to Hay Common.
footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near
I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group Mr. Eshton’s chair, and said something to him in a low voice,
by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was of which I heard only the words, “old woman,”—”quite
called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived troublesome.”
in England, and that he came from some hot country: which “Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take
was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he herself off,” replied the magistrate.
sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house. Pres- “No—stop!” interrupted Colonel Dent. “Don’t send her
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