No More Learning

"

"Do explain," I urged, when he halted once more.

"I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,--how trivial--how
cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead,
and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the
course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the
utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had
no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of
progress. I established one for boys: I mean now to open a second school
for girls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of
two rooms attached to it for the mistress's house. Her salary will be
thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but
sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter
of the sole rich man in my parish--Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-
factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The same lady pays for the
education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that
she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own
house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her
having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress? "

He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an
indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing
all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in
what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble--but then
it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding--but then,
compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent;
and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it
was not ignoble--not unworthy--not mentally degrading, I made my
decision.

"I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my
heart. "

"But you comprehend me? " he said. "It is a village school: your scholars
will be only poor girls--cottagers' children--at the best, farmers'
daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all
you will have to teach. What will you do with your accomplishments?
What, with the largest portion of your mind--sentiments--tastes? "

"Save them till they are wanted. They will keep. "

"You know what you undertake, then? "

"I do. "

He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased and
deeply gratified.

"And when will you commence the exercise of your function? "

"I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, next
week. "

"Very well: so be it. "

He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at
me. He shook his head.

"What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers? " I asked.

"You will not stay at Morton long: no, no! "

"Why? What is your reason for saying so? "

"I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the
maintenance of an even tenor in life. "

"I am not ambitious. "

He started at the word "ambitious. " He repeated, "No. What made you
think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find
it out? "

"I was speaking of myself. "

"Well, if you are not ambitious, you are--" He paused.

"What? "

"I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have
misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human
affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure
you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to
devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of stimulus:
any more than I can be content," he added, with emphasis, "to live here
buried in morass, pent in with mountains--my nature, that God gave me,
contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed--made useless. You
hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a
humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers
of water in God's service--I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my
restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by
some means. "

He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in
the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.

Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached
for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried to appear as
usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not
be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated that this would be a
different parting from any they had ever yet known. It would probably,
as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years: it might be a
parting for life.

"He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves," she said: "natural
affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane;
but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in
some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my
conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe
decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It is
right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my heart! " And the tears gushed
to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work.

"We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother,"
she murmured.

At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate
purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that "misfortunes never come
singly," and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip
between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a
letter. He entered.

"Our uncle John is dead," said he.

Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings
appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.

"Dead? " repeated Diana.

"Yes. "

She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face. "And what then? " she
demanded, in a low voice.

"What then, Die? " he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature.
"What then? Why--nothing. Read. "

He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to
Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All
three looked at each other, and all three smiled--a dreary, pensive smile
enough.

"Amen! We can yet live," said Diana at last.

"At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before," remarked
Mary.

"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what _might
have been_," said Mr. Rivers, "and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with
what _is_. "

He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out.

For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me.

"Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said, "and think us
hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a
relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was my
mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his
advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that
ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them: they parted in
anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged afterwards in more
prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty
thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no near kindred but
ourselves and one other person, not more closely related than we. My
father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by
leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has
bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of
thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers,
for the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course, to
do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the
receipt of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with
a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been
valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do. "

This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference
made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day I left
Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for
distant B-. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage:
and so the old grange was abandoned.




CHAPTER XXXI


My home, then, when I at last find a home,--is a cottage; a little room
with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs
and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes,
and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions
as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too
large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the kindness of my
gentle and generous friends has increased that, by a modest stock of such
things as are necessary.

It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little
orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth.
This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But
three of the number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a
few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the district.
At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other's
language. Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as
ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a
disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad
little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest
genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement,
intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in
those of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I
shall find some happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I
do not expect in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I
regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live
on from day to day.

Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder
bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive
myself, I must reply--No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt--yes,
idiot that I am--I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which
sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I was
weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I
heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much
for these feelings; I know them to be wrong--that is a great step gained;
I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the
better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite
subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing
progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute
gratification for disgust.

Meantime, let me ask myself one question--Which is better? --To have
surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort--no
struggle;--but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on
the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the
luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr.
Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time--for he
would--oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He _did_ love
me--no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet
homage given to beauty, youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall
I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me--it is what
no man besides will ever be. --But where am I wandering, and what am I
saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a
slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one
hour--suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the
next--or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy
mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and
scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God
directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my
door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet
fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile
from the village. The birds were singing their last strains--

"The air was mild, the dew was balm. "

While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself
ere long weeping--and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion
to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and
fatal fury--consequences of my departure--which might now, perhaps, be
dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate
restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face aside from the
lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton--I say _lonely_, for in that
bend of it visible to me there was no building apparent save the church
and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the
roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I
hid my eyes, and leant my head against the stone frame of my door; but
soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the
meadow beyond it made me look up. A dog--old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer,
as I saw in a moment--was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John
himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave
almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in.

"No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters
left for you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper. "

I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I
thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were
doubtless very visible upon it.

"Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected? " he
asked.

"Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my
scholars very well. "

"But perhaps your accommodations--your cottage--your furniture--have
disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but--"
I interrupted--

"My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and
commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not
absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a
carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing--I
was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a
business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends;
the bounty of my lot. I do not repine. "

"But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you
is dark and empty. "

"I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less
to grow impatient under one of loneliness. "

"Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your
good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the
vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw you, of
course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation
which would incline you to look back: pursue your present career
steadily, for some months at least. "

"It is what I mean to do," I answered. St. John continued--

"It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent
of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has
given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our
energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get--when our will
strains after a path we may not follow--we need neither starve from
inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another
nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to
taste--and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road
as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if
rougher than it.

"A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had
made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to
death. I burnt for the more active life of the world--for the more
exciting toils of a literary career--for the destiny of an artist,
author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of
a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a
luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my
life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season
of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped
existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds--my powers
heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread
their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear
which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and
eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator,
were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.

"A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind
changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving
nothing of bondage but its galling soreness--which time only can heal. My
father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I have
not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a
successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings
broken through or cut asunder--a last conflict with human weakness, in
which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I _will_
overcome--and I leave Europe for the East. "

He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, when
he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at which I
looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the
field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the
water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and
scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell,
exclaimed--

"Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is
quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears
and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have
your back towards me now. "

It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical
accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood
yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the
speaker had surprised him--his arm resting on the gate, his face directed
towards the west.
He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A
vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared,
within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white--a youthful, graceful
form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo,
it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under
his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong
expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever
the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as
ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified,
in this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was
perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes
shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark,
and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so
soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the
white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of
tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too,
ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw;
the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses--all
advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were
fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I admired her
with my whole heart. Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood;
and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed
this, her darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.

What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked
myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as
naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He had
already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft
of daisies which grew by the wicket.

"A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone," he said, as he
crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.

"Oh, I only came home from S-" (she mentioned the name of a large town
some twenty miles distant) "this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened
your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my
bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she? "
pointing to me.

"It is," said St. John.

"Do you think you shall like Morton? " she asked of me, with a direct and
naive simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like.

"I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so. "

"Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected? "

"Quite. "

"Do you like your house? "

"Very much. "

"Have I furnished it nicely? "

"Very nicely, indeed. "

"And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood? "

"You have indeed. She is teachable and handy. " (This then, I thought,
is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of fortune,
as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of the planets
presided over her birth, I wonder? )

"I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes," she added. "It will
be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr.
Rivers, I have been _so_ gay during my stay at S-. Last night, or rather
this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The ---th regiment are
stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable
men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor
merchants to shame. "

It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper
lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed,
and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the
laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from
the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning
gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well
became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes.

As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. "Poor
Carlo loves me," said she. "_He_ is not stern and distant to his
friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent. "

As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young
and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face. I saw his
solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion.
Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she
for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of
despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a
vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think,
as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He responded neither by
word nor movement to the gentle advances made him.

"Papa says you never come to see us now," continued Miss Oliver, looking
up. "You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this evening,
and not very well: will you return with me and visit him? "

"It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver," answered St.
John.

"Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when
papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business
to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, _do_ come. Why are you so very shy, and
so very sombre? " She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of
her own.

"I forgot! " she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if
shocked at herself. "I am so giddy and thoughtless! _Do_ excuse me. It
had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for
joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is
shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and see
papa. "

"Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night. "

Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort
it cost him thus to refuse.

"Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any
longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening! "

She held out her hand. He just touched it. "Good evening! " he repeated,
in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment
returned.

"Are you well? " she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was
blanched as her gown.

"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went
one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped
fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned
at all.

This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from
exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother
"inexorable as death. " She had not exaggerated.




CHAPTER XXXII


I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and faithfully
as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before,
with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature.
Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me
hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon found I
was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst the
educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference
rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules,
and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping
rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves
obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few
examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of
excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration. These
soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their persons
neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly
manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even
surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I began
personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I had
amongst my scholars several farmers' daughters: young women grown,
almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught
the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of
needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them--characters
desirous of information and disposed for improvement--with whom I passed
many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then (the
farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment
in accepting their simple kindness, and in 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.

Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could not,
conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went
up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his
face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with
his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, "I love
you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps
me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. But that
heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it.
It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed. "

And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would
soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from
his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic
and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to
follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give
one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one
hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not bind all that
he had in his nature--the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest--in
the limits of a single passion. He could not--he would not--renounce his
wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale
Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his
reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.

Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I
had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise:
she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly
selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely
spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it,
when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness),
but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth;
ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she was
very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me;
but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very
different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters
of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except
that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer
affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult
acquaintance.

She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers,
only, certainly, she allowed, "not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a
nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel. " I was, however,
good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a _lusus naturae_, she
affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous history,
if known, would make a delightful romance.

One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless
yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the
table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books,
a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my
drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty
little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from
nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. She
was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight.

"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a
love--what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first
school in S-. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa? "

"With pleasure," I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the
idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a
dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament
was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the
wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew
a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and,
as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit another
day.

She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself
accompanied her next evening--a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and
grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright
flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud
personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond's portrait
pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of it. He
insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale
Hall.

I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant
evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and
pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he
entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms
his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he only
feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and
would soon quit it for one more suitable.

"Indeed," cried Rosamond, "she is clever enough to be a governess in a
high family, papa. "

I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the
land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers--of the Rivers family--with great
respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the
ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to
them; that even now he considered the representative of that house might,
if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that
so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going
out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It
appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of
Rosamond's union with St. John. Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young
clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred profession as sufficient
compensation for the want of fortune.

It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after
helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a
penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright--scoured floor,
polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and
had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.

The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my
palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier
occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature. The head was
finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to
shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips--a soft curl
here and there to the tresses--a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash
under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these nice
details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John
Rivers.

"I am come to see how you are spending your holiday," he said. "Not, I
hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel
lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up
wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace," and
he laid on the table a new publication--a poem: one of those genuine
productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days--the
golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less
favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I
know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power
over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence,
their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful
angels, safe in heaven!