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228 gouvernante, et si elle n' étaitn'était [sic] pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pâle. J'ai dit que oui: car c' estc'est [sic] vrai, n' est-cen'est-ce [sic] pas, Mademoiselle?"

I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the school-room. At dark I allowed Adèle to put away books and work, and to run down stairs; for, from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. Left alone, I walked to the window, but nothing was to be seen thence: twilight and snow-flakes together thickened the air and hid the very shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the fireside.

In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine; when Mrs. Fairfax came in: breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had been piecing together, and scattering too some heavy, unwelcome thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude.