He looked at me before he proceeded:  indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page.  The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding observations.

“I believe you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it for a while:  not permanently, though:  any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing —­ the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.”

“Do explain,” I urged, when he halted once more.

“I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is, —­ how trivial —­ how cramping.  I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own master.  I shall leave the place probably in the course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement.  Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school:  the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of progress.  I established one for boys:  I mean now to open a second school for girls.  I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’s house.  Her salary will be thirty pounds a year:  her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish —­ Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the valley.  The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person.  Will you be this mistress?”

He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer:  not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me.  In truth it was humble —­ but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum:  it was plodding —­ but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron:  it was not ignoble —­ not unworthy —­ not mentally degrading, I made my decision.

“I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my heart.”

“But you comprehend me?” he said.  “It is a village school:  your scholars will be only poor girls —­ cottagers’ children —­ at the best, farmers’ daughters.  Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all you will have to teach.  What will you do with your accomplishments?  What, with the largest portion of your mind —­ sentiments —­ tastes?”

“Save them till they are wanted.  They will keep.”