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repaying it by a consideration- a scrupulous regard to their feelings-
to which they were not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which
both charmed and benefited them; because, while it elevated them in
their own eyes, it made them emulous to merit the deferential
treatment they received.
I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went
out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with
friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the
regard of working people, is like 'sitting in sunshine, calm and
sweet'; serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this
period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than
sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of
this calm, this useful existence- after a day passed in honourable
exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading
contentedly alone- I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams
many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the
stormy- dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure,
with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met
Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of
being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his
hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him- the hope of passing
a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and
fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated.
Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and
then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and
heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next morning I was
punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the
steady duties of the day.
Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at
the school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She
would canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted
livery servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her
purple habit, with her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed
gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to
her shoulders, can scarcely be imagined: and it was thus she would
enter the rustic building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of
the village children. She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers
was engaged in giving his daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear,
did the eye of the visitress pierce the young pastor's heart. A sort
of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he did not
see it; and when he was looking quite away from the door, if she
appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming features,
though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in their very
quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than
working muscle or darting glance could indicate.