“Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.”

“Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?”

“Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.”

“Do you like him?  Is he generally liked?”

“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here.  Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind.”

“Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him?  Is he liked for himself?”

“I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants:  but he has never lived much amongst them.”

“But has he no peculiarities?  What, in short, is his character?”

“Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose.  He is rather peculiar, perhaps:  he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think.  I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him.”

“In what way is he peculiar?”

“I don’t know —­ it is not easy to describe —­ nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don’t thoroughly understand him, in short —­ at least, I don’t:  but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master.”

This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine.  There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things:  the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out.  Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor —­ nothing more:  she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.

When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome.  The large front chambers I thought especially grand:  and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity.  The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed:  and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more