A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked —­ a tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away.  I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud:  the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale.

“I wish he would come!  I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding.  I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark:  what could keep him?  Had an accident happened?  The event of last night again recurred to me.  I interpreted it as a warning of disaster.  I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline.

“Well, I cannot return to the house,” I thought; “I cannot sit by the fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather:  better tire my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him.”

I set out; I walked fast, but not far:  ere I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a dog ran by his side.  Away with evil presentiment!  It was he:  here he was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot.  He saw me; for the moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright:  he took his hat off, and waved it round his head.  I now ran to meet him.

“There!” he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the saddle:  “You can’t do without me, that is evident.  Step on my boot-toe; give me both hands:  mount!”

I obeyed:  joy made me agile:  I sprang up before him.  A hearty kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well as I could.  He checked himself in his exultation to demand, “But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an hour?  Is there anything wrong?”

“No, but I thought you would never come.  I could not bear to wait in the house for you, especially with this rain and wind.”

“Rain and wind, indeed!  Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my cloak round you:  but I think you are feverish, Jane:  both your cheek and hand are burning hot.  I ask again, is there anything the matter?

“Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy.”

“Then you have been both?”

“Rather:  but I’ll tell you all about it by-and-bye, sir; and I daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains.”

“I’ll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not:  my prize is not certain.  This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose?  I could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms.  You wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?”

“I wanted you:  but don’t boast.  Here we are at Thornfield:  now let me get down.”