Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of Adele’s pinafore, which happened to be loose:  having helped her also to another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly —

“Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?”

“Indeed he is —­ in three days, he says:  that will be next Thursday; and not alone either.  I don’t know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him:  he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets:  so we shall have a full house of it.”  And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence operations.

The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough.  I had thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged; but it appears I was mistaken.  Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since.  Adele ran quite wild in the midst of it:  the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies.  She would have Sophie to look over all her “toilettes,” as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were “passees,” and to air and arrange the new.  For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys.  From school duties she was exonerated:  Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and French pastry, to truss game and garnish desert-dishes.

The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for dinner at six.  During the intervening period I had no time to nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody —­ Adele excepted.  Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures.  This was when I chanced to see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms, —­ just say a word, perhaps, to the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble mantelpiece, or take stains from