No More Learning

"

"Strange indeed! " I could not help ejaculating.

"While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her charms,
something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such
that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to--co-operate in nothing
I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond
a missionary's wife? No! "

"But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme. "

"Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on
earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band
who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their
race--of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance--of substituting
peace for war--freedom for bondage--religion for superstition--the hope
of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer
than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to
live for. "

After a considerable pause, I said--"And Miss Oliver? Are her
disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you? "

"Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a
month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; and
will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I
should do. "

"You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are
wasting away. "

"No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet
unsettled--my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning,
I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so
long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come
yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six. "

"You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the
schoolroom. "

Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined
that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in
this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong,
discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed
the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of
confidence, and won a place by their heart's very hearthstone.

"You are original," said he, "and not timid. There is something brave in
your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure
you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more
profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of
sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I shade
before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know
it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion
of the soul. _That_ is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths
of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am--a cold hard man. "

I smiled incredulously.

"You have taken my confidence by storm," he continued, "and now it is
much at your service. I am simply, in my original state--stripped of
that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity--a
cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the
sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not feeling, is my
guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more
than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, industry,
talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and
mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest, because I
consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not
because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you
still suffer. "

"You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher," I said.

"No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I
believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a
pagan, but a Christian philosopher--a follower of the sect of Jesus. As
His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I
advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she
has cultivated my original qualities thus:--From the minute germ, natural
affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From
the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of
the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for my
wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master's kingdom;
to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much has religion
done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning
and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be
eradicated 'till this mortal shall put on immortality. '"

Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my
palette. Once more he looked at the portrait.

"She _is_ lovely," he murmured. "She is well named the Rose of the
World, indeed! "

"And may I not paint one like it for you? "

"_Cui bono_? No. "

He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was
accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from
being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was
impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it
up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me,
inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance that seemed
to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress; for it
traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, as if to
speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.

"What is the matter? " I asked.

"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw
him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in
his glove; and, with one hasty nod and "good-afternoon," he vanished.

"Well! " I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, "that caps the
globe, however! "

I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few
dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I
pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and
being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon
forgot it.




CHAPTER XXXIII


When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm
continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding
falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I
had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from
blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on
the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle,
took down "Marmion," and beginning--

"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The massive towers, the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round them sweep,
In yellow lustre shone"--

I soon forgot storm in music.

I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St.
John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen
hurricane--the howling darkness--and stood before me: the cloak that
covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in
consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up
vale that night.

"Any ill news? " I demanded. "Has anything happened? "

"No. How very easily alarmed you are! " he answered, removing his cloak
and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again coolly pushed
the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his
boots.

"I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must excuse
me for once. " Then he approached the fire. "I have had hard work to get
here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame.
"One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet. "

"But why are you come? " I could not forbear saying.

"Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask
it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my
mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced
the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is
impatient to hear the sequel. "

He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I
began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his was
a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that
handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did
just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the
firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved
me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved.
I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend;
but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking.
It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps
uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say--

"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that
you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own
health. "

"Not at all," said he: "I care for myself when necessary. I am well now.
What do you see amiss in me? "

This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that
my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was
silenced.

He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye
dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say something,
I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which
was behind him.

"No, no! " he responded shortly and somewhat testily.

"Well," I reflected, "if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll let you
alone now, and return to my book. "

So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of "Marmion. " He soon
stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out a
morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in silence,
folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to
read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in
impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk
I would.

"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately? "

"Not since the letter I showed you a week ago. "

"There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You
will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected? "

"I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me. " Baffled so
far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the school
and my scholars.

"Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this
morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry
Close--they would have come to-day but for the snow. "

"Indeed! "

"Mr. Oliver pays for two. "

"Does he? "

"He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas. "

"I know. "

"Was it your suggestion? "

"No. "

"Whose, then? "

"His daughter's, I think. "

"It is like her: she is so good-natured. "

"Yes. "

Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It
aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.

"Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire," he said.

Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.

"Half-an-hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear the
sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed
by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting you into a listener.
Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound
somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often regain a degree
of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the rest, whether
trite or novel, it is short.

"Twenty years ago, a poor curate--never mind his name at this moment--fell
in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and
married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently
disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed, the
rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab.
(I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge
churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown
manufacturing town in ---shire. ) They left a daughter, which, at its
very birth, Charity received in her lap--cold as that of the snow-drift I
almost stuck fast in to-night. Charity carried the friendless thing to
the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-
law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start--did
you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the
rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it
repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by rats. --To
proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it was happy or
not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at the end of
that time she transferred it to a place you know--being no other than
Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself. It seems her career
there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a teacher, like
yourself--really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history
and yours--she left it to be a governess: there, again, your fates were
analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr.
Rochester. "

"Mr. Rivers! " I interrupted.

"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a while: I
have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester's character I
know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable
marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered he
had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent conduct and
proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event
transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was
discovered she was gone--no one could tell when, where, or how. She had
left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had
been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of
information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be
found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put
in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a
solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is it not an
odd tale? "

"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you surely can
tell it me--what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he
doing? Is he well? "

"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never mentions
him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to.
You should rather ask the name of the governess--the nature of the event
which requires her appearance. "

"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester? "

"I suppose not. "

"But they wrote to him? "

"Of course. "

"And what did he say? Who has his letters? "

"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr.
Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed 'Alice Fairfax. '"

I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he had
in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to
some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for his severe
sufferings--what object for his strong passions--had he sought there? I
dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master--once almost my
husband--whom I had often called "my dear Edward! "

"He must have been a bad man," observed Mr. Rivers.

"You don't know him--don't pronounce an opinion upon him," I said, with
warmth.

"Very well," he answered quietly: "and indeed my head is otherwise
occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since you won't ask
the governess's name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay!
I have it
here--it is always more satisfactory to see important points written
down, fairly committed to black and white. "

And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought
through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of
paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of
ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the
portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced
in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words "JANE EYRE"--the work
doubtless of some moment of abstraction.

"Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, "the advertisements
demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott. --I confess I had my
suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once
resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the _alias_? "

"Yes--yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr.
Rochester than you do. "

"Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about
Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime,
you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why
Mr. Briggs sought after you--what he wanted with you. "

"Well, what did he want? "

"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that
he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich--merely
that--nothing more. "

"I! --rich? "

"Yes, you, rich--quite an heiress. "

Silence succeeded.

"You must prove your identity of course," resumed St. John presently: "a
step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate
possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the
will and the necessary documents. "

Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted
in a moment from indigence to wealth--a very fine thing; but not a matter
one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there
are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: _this_
is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its
associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same.
One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a
fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business;
on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain
ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words,
Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead--my only relative; ever
since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one
day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only to
me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It was a
grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious--yes, I felt
that--that thought swelled my heart.

"You unbend your forehead at last," said Mr. Rivers. "I thought Medusa
had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you
will ask how much you are worth? "

"How much am I worth? "

"Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of--twenty thousand pounds, I
think they say--but what is that? "

"Twenty thousand pounds? "

Here was a new stunner--I had been calculating on four or five thousand.
This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I had
never heard laugh before, laughed now.

"Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your
crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast. "

"It is a large sum--don't you think there is a mistake? "

"No mistake at all. "

"Perhaps you have read the figures wrong--it may be two thousand! "

"It is written in letters, not figures,--twenty thousand. "

I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical
powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for
a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.

"If it were not such a very wild night," he said, "I would send Hannah
down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left
alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I:
her legs are not quite so long: so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows.
Good-night. "

He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. "Stop one
minute! " I cried.

"Well? "

"It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he
knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way
place, had the power to aid in my discovery. "

"Oh! I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed to
about odd matters. " Again the latch rattled.

"No; that does not satisfy me! " I exclaimed: and indeed there was
something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of
allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.

"It is a very strange piece of business," I added; "I must know more
about it. "

"Another time. "

"No; to-night! --to-night! " and as he turned from the door, I placed
myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.

"You certainly shall not go till you have told me all," I said.

"I would rather not just now. "

"You shall! --you must! "

"I would rather Diana or Mary informed you. "

Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it
must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.

"But I apprised you that I was a hard man," said he, "difficult to
persuade. "

"And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off. "

{And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off: p369. jpg}

"And then," he pursued, "I am cold: no fervour infects me. "

"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed
all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my
floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be
forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a
sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know. "

"Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your
perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must
know some day,--as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre? "

"Of course: that was all settled before. "

"You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake? --that I was
christened St. John Eyre Rivers? "

"No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your
initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I
never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely--"

I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express,
the thought that rushed upon me--that embodied itself,--that, in a
second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit
themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been
lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,--every
ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the
matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect
the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his
explanation.

"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who
married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq. ,
merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's
solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's death, and
to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman's
orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never
forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks since,
to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything of
her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find
her out. You know the rest. " Again he was going, but I set my back
against the door.

"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath and
reflect. " I paused--he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed
enough. I resumed--

"Your mother was my father's sister? "

"Yes. "

"My aunt, consequently? "

He bowed.

"My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his
sister's children, as I am his brother's child? "

"Undeniably. "

"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from
the same source? "

"We are cousins; yes. "

I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud
of,--one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that,
when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine
affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the
wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House
kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair,
were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found
me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious
discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed! --wealth to the
heart! --a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright,
vivid, and exhilarating;--not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and
welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped
my hands in sudden joy--my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.

"Oh, I am glad! --I am glad! " I exclaimed.

St. John smiled. "Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue
trifles? " he asked. "You were serious when I told you you had got a
fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited. "

"What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and
don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three relations,--or
two, if you don't choose to be counted,--are born into my world
full-grown. I say again, I am glad! "

I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the
thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle
them:--thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere
long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending
stars,--every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my
life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit.
They were under a yoke,--I could free them: they were scattered,--I could
reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be
theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally
would be five thousand each, justice--enough and to spare: justice would
be done,--mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me:
now it was not a mere bequest of coin,--it was a legacy of life, hope,
enjoyment.

How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot
tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me,
and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised me
to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and
distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again.

"Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said, "and tell them to come home
directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with a
thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well. "

"Tell me where I can get you a glass of water," said St. John; "you must
really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings. "

"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? Will
it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down
like an ordinary mortal? "

"You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in
communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength. "

"Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it
is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand. "

"Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should
comprehend better. "

"Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty
thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew
and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? What I
want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of the
fortune that has accrued to them. "

"To you, you mean. "

"I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any
other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly
ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. I
like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary,
and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would please and
benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me
to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice,
though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely
superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about
it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the point at once. "

"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a
matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid. "

"Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice of
the case? "

"I _do_ see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. Besides,
the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his own efforts;
he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to you. After all,
justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear conscience,
consider it absolutely your own. "

"With me," said I, "it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of
conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an
opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a
year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a
glimpse--that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to
myself lifelong friends. "

"You think so now," rejoined St. John, "because you do not know what it
is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot form a notion
of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it
would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to
you: you cannot--"

"And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine the craving I have for
fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or
sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me
and own me, are you? "

"Jane, I will be your brother--my sisters will be your sisters--without
stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights. "

"Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes;
slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy--gorged with gold I never earned
and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation!
Close union! Intimate attachment!