Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 3.djvu/137

 to visit you now and then: and I like a change. Mr. Rivers, I have been so gay during my stay at S—. Last night, or rather this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The th regiment are stationed there, since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissar merchants to shame."

It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh: and laughter well became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes.

As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. "Poor Carlo loves me," said she. "He is not stern and distant to his friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent."

As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face. Rh