style of absolute and capricious eccentricity, though redeemed in him by signs of a cultivated intellect, and gleams of a certain fierce justice of heart.  He has a mind, and when he opens it at all, he opens it freely to her.  Jane becomes attached to her “master,” as Pamela-like she calls him, and it is not difficult to see that solitude and propinquity are taking effect upon him also.  An odd circumstance heightens the dawning romance.  Jane is awoke one night by that strange discordant laugh close to her ear—­ then a noise as if hands feeling along the wall.  She rises—­opens her door, finds the passage full of smoke, is guided by it to her master’s room, whose bed she discovers enveloped in flames, and by her timely aid saves his life.  After this they meet no more for ten days, when Mr. Rochester returns from a visit to a neighbouring family, bringing with him a housefull of distinguished guests; at the head of whom is Miss Blanche Ingram, a haughty beauty of high birth, and evidently the especial object of the Squire’s attentions—­upon which tumultuous irruption Miss Eyre slips back into her naturally humble position.

Our little governess is now summoned away to attend her aunt’s death-bed, who is visited by some compunctions towards her, and she is absent a month.  When she returns Thornfield Hall is quit of all its guests, and Mr. Rochester and she resume their former life of captious cordiality on the one side, and diplomatic humility on the other.  At the same time the bugbear of Miss Ingram and of Mr. Rochester’s engagement with her is kept up, though it is easy to see that this and all concerning that lady is only a stratagem to try Jane’s character and affection upon the most approved Griselda precedent.  Accordingly an opportunity for explanation ere long offers itself, where Mr. Rochester has only to take it.  Miss Eyre is desired to walk with him in shady alleys, and to sit with him on the roots of an old chestnut-tree towards the close of evening, and of course she cannot disobey her “master”—­whereupon there ensues a scene which, as far as we remember, is new equally in art or nature; in which Miss Eyre confesses her love—­whereupon Mr. Rochester drops not only his cigar (which she seems to be in the habit of lighting for him) but his mask, and finally offers not only heart, but hand.  The wedding day is soon fixed, but strange misgivings and presentiments haunt the young lady’s mind.  The night but one before her bed-room is entered by a horrid phantom, who tries on the wedding veil, sends Jane into a swoon of terror, and defeats all the favourite refuge of a bad dream by leaving the veil in two pieces.  But all is ready.  The bride has no friends to assist—­the couple walk to church—­only the clergyman and the clerk are there—­but Jane’s quick eye has seen two figures lingering among the tombstones, and these two follow them into church.  The ceremony commences, when at the due charge which summons any man to come forward and show