I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o’clock in the afternoon of the first of May:  I stepped in there before going up to the hall.  It was very clean and neat:  the ornamental windows were hung with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear.  Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a corner.

“Bless you! —­ I knew you would come!” exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I entered.

“Yes, Bessie,” said I, after I had kissed her; “and I trust I am not too late.  How is Mrs. Reed? —­ Alive still, I hope.”

“Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was.  The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she will finally recover.”

“Has she mentioned me lately?”

“She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come, but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the house.  She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven.  Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?”

Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and went to welcome him:  afterwards she insisted on my taking off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired.  I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when a child.

Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about —­ setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days.  Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good looks.

Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones.  I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair:  and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.

She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him.  I told her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly, and I was content.  Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with interest:  they were precisely of the kind she relished.