“Yes, sir.”

“Whose house is it?”

“Mr. Rochester’s.”

“Do you know Mr. Rochester?”

“No, I have never seen him.”

“You are not a servant at the Hall, of course.  You are—­”

“I am the governess.”

“Ah, the governess!” he repeated.  “Deuce take me if I had not forgotten!  Excuse me,” he continued, “necessity compels me to make you useful.”

He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, limped to his horse, caught the bridle, and, grimacing grimly, sprang into the saddle and, with a “Thank you,” bounded away.

When I returned from Hay, after posting Mrs. Fairfax’s letter, I went to her room.  She was not there, but sitting upright on the rug was a great black-and-white long-haired dog.  I went forward and said, “Pilot,” and the thing got up, came to me, sniffed me, and wagged his great tail.  I rang the bell.

“What dog is this?”

“He came with master, who has just arrived.  He has had an accident, and his ankle is sprained.”

The next day I was summoned to take tea with Mr. Rochester and my pupil.  When I entered he was looking at Adela, who knelt on the hearth beside Pilot.

“Here is Miss Eyre, sir,” said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way.

Mr. Rochester bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and the child.

I sat down, disembarrassed.  Politeness might have confused me; caprice laid me under no obligation.

Mrs. Fairfax seemed to think someone should be amiable, and she began to talk.

“Madam, I should like some tea,” was the sole rejoinder she got.

“Come to the fire,” said the master, when the tray was taken away.  “When you came on me in Hay lane last night I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse.  I am not sure yet.  Who are your parents?”

“I have none.”

“I thought not.  And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?”

“For whom, sir?”

“For the men in green.  Did I break through one of your rings that you spread that ice on the causeway?”

I shook my head.

“The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago.  I don’t think either summer or harvest or winter moon will ever shine on their revels more.”

Mrs. Fairfax dropped her knitting, wondering what sort of talk this was, and remarked that Miss Eyre had been a kind and careful teacher.

“Don’t trouble yourself to give her a character,” returned Mr. Rochester.  “I shall judge for myself.  She began by felling my horse.”

“You said Mr. Rochester was not peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax,” I remonstrated, when I rejoined her in her room after putting Adela to bed.

After a time my master’s manner towards me changed.  It became more uniform.  I never seemed in his way.  He did not take fits of chilling hauteur.  When he met me, the encounter seemed welcome; he always had a word, and sometimes a smile.  I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master, and so happy did I become that the blanks of existence were filled up.  He had now been resident eight weeks, though Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed at the Hall longer than a fortnight.