Chapter 13, A Sneeze Out of Season Summary

The climate in Villette is variable, and the day after the events in the garden is dark and windy. Lucy does not take her normal walk in the garden, and instead she retreats to the "Etude de soir," or evening study. Usually this means a silent study time, when Lucy can work on her German before then a pious lecture is read from an old book. Lucy hates the book, since it is filled with stories of hypocritical saints and faulty morality that offend her Protestant upbringing. The lectures anger her so much that she once broke the tips off her scissors by stabbing them into the table.

This evening, the book is fetched, and Lucy leaves the room. She makes her way in the darkness to her dormitory, and there she finds...