Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 19.

The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl
if Sibyl she were was seated snugly enough in an easy chair
at the chimney corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet:
or rather, a broad brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped
handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on
the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a
little black book, like a prayer book, by the light of the blaze:
she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she
read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared
she wished to finish a paragraph.

I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with
sitting at a distance from the drawing room fire. I felt now as
composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in
the gipsy's appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book
and slowly looked up; her hat brim partially shaded her face, yet
I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked
all brown and black: elf locks bristled out from beneath a white
band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks,
or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and
direct gaze.

"Well, and you want your fortune told?" she said, in a voice as
decided as her glance, as harsh as her features. "I don't care about
it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I
have no faith." "It's like your impudence to say so: I expected
it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold."
"Did you? You've a quick ear." "I have; and a quick eye and a
quick brain." "You need them all in your trade." "I do; especially
when I've customers like you to deal with. Why don't you tremble?"
"I'm not cold." "Why don't you turn pale?" "I am not sick."
"Why don't you consult my art?" "I'm not silly."

The old crone "nichered" a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she
then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke.
Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body,
took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire,
said very deliberately "You are cold; you are sick; and you are
silly." "Prove it," I rejoined.

"I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no
contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick;
because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given
to man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer
as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir
one step to meet it where it waits you."

She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her
smoking with vigour. "You might say all that to almost any one
who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house."
"I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost
any one?" "In my circumstances." "Yes; just so, in YOUR
circumstances: but find me another precisely placed as you are."
"It would be easy to find you thousands." "You could scarcely
find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very
near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials are all
prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them.
Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached
and bliss results."

"I don't understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my
life." "If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm."
"And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?" "To be sure."
I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking foot which
she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned
it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She arched her face
to the palm, and pored over it without touching it.

"It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as
that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny
is not written there." "I believe you," said I. "No," she continued,
"it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the lines of the
mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head." "Ah! now you are coming to
reality," I said, as I obeyed her. "I shall begin to put some faith
in you presently."

I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so
that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare,
however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine,
it illumined.

"I wonder with what feelings you came to me to night," she said,
when she had examined me a while. "I wonder what thoughts are busy
in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the
fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic lantern:
just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them
as if they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the
actual substance."

"I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad." "Then you have
some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the
future?" "Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my
earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself."

"A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window
seat (you see I know your habits )" "You have learned them from the
servants." "Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak
truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole "

I started to my feet when I heard the name. "You have have you?"
thought I; "there is diablerie in the business after all, then!"
"Don't be alarmed," continued the strange being; "she's a safe
hand is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence
in her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that window seat, do
you think of nothing but your future school? Have you no present
interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs
before you? Is there not one face you study? one figure whose
movements you follow with at least curiosity?"

"I like to observe all the faces and all the figures." "But do you
never single one from the rest or it may be, two?" "I do frequently;
when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale: it amuses
me to watch them." "What tale do you like best to hear?"

"Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme
courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe marriage."
"And do you like that monotonous theme?" "Positively, I don't care
about it: it is nothing to me." "Nothing to you? When a lady, young
and full of life and health, charming with beauty and endowed
with the gifts of rank and fortune, sits and smiles in the eyes of
a gentleman you." "I what?" "You know and perhaps think well of."

"I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged
a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I
consider some respectable, and stately, and middle aged, and others
young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all
at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without
my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me."

"You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a
syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the
house!" "He is not at home." "A profound remark! A most ingenious
quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here
tonight or tomorrow: does that circumstance exclude him from
the list of your acquaintance blot him, as it were, out of existence?"

"No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the
theme you had introduced." "I was talking of ladies smiling in the
eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into
Mr. Rochester's eyes that they overflow like two cups filled above
the brim: have you never remarked that?" "Mr. Rochester has a right
to enjoy the society of his guests." "No question about his right: but
have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about
matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most lively
and the most continuous?"

"The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator." I
said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk,
voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One
unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got
involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit
had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and
taking record of every pulse.

"Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she: "yes; Mr. Rochester has
sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took
such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was
so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given
him; you have noticed this?" "Grateful! I cannot remember detecting
gratitude in his face." "Detecting! You have analysed, then. And
what did you detect, if not gratitude?" I said nothing.

"You have seen love: have you not? and, looking forward, you
have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?" "Humph!
Not exactly. Your witch's skill is rather at fault sometimes."
"What the devil have you seen, then?" "Never mind: I came
here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester
is to be married?" "Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram."

"Shortly?" "Appearances would warrant that conclusion:
and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising
out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively
happy pair. He must love such a handsome, noble, witty,
accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not his
person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester
estate eligible to the last degree; though (god pardon me!) I told
her something on that point about an hour ago which made her
look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch.
I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another
comes, with a longer or clearer rent roll, he's dished."

"But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune: I
came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it."
"Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait
contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness:
that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has
laid it carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends
on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether
you will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug."
"Don't keep me long; the fire scorches me." I knelt. She did not
stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair.
She began muttering, "The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines
like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon:
it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear
sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude
weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from
loneliness. It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny;
it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries
I have already made, to disown the charge both of sensibility and
chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The
eye is favourable.

"As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed
to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would
be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible,
it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of
solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often,
and have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature too
is propitious.

"I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that
brow professes to say, 'I can live alone, if self respect, and
circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy
bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me
alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered
only at a price I cannot afford to give.' The forehead declares,
'Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the
feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may
rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires
may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still
have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in
every decision. Strong wind, earthquake shock, and fire may pass
by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which
interprets the dictates of conscience.'

"Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have
formed my plans right plans I deem them and in them I have
attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I
know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup
of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse
were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution
such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight to earn
gratitude, not to wring tears of blood no, nor of brine: my
harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet That will
do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish
now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far
I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore
I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise,
Miss Eyre: leave me; the play is played out'."

Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I
dream still? The old woman's voice had changed: her accent, her
gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass
as the speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I
looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her
bonnet and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me
to depart. The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused
now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that
hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was
a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned;
a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward,
I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before.
Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from me
on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the
head advanced.

"Well, Jane, do you know me?" asked the familiar voice. "Only take
off the red cloak, sir, and then " "But the string is in a knot help me."
"Break it, sir." "There, then 'Off, ye lendings!'" And Mr. Rochester
stepped out of his disguise. "Now, sir, what a strange idea!"
"But well carried out, eh? Don't you think so?" "With the ladies
you must have managed well." "But not with you?" "You did not
act the character of a gipsy with me." "What character did I act?
My own?" "No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you
have been trying to draw me out or in; you have been talking
nonsense to make me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir."
"Do you forgive me, Jane?"

"I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection,
I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive
you; but it was not right." "Oh, you have been very correct very
careful, very sensible." I reflected, and thought, on the whole,
I had. It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard
almost from the beginning of the interview. Something of
masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and fortune tellers did
not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed
herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to
conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace
Poole that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I
considered her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester. "Well,"
said he, "what are you musing about? What does that grave
smile signify?"

"Wonder and self congratulation, sir. I have your permission to
retire now, I suppose?" "No; stay a moment; and tell me what
the people in the drawing room yonder are doing." "Discussing
the gipsy, I daresay." "Sit down! Let me hear what they said
about me."

"I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o'clock.
Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here
since you left this morning?" "A stranger! no; who can it be?
I expected no one; is he gone?" "No; he said he had known you
long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself
here till you returned." "The devil he did! Did he give his name?"
"His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from
Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think."

Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if
to lead me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive
grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his
breath. "Mason! the West Indies!" he said, in the tone one might fancy
a speaking automaton to enounce its single words; "Mason! the
West Indies!" he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three
times, growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes:
he hardly seemed to know what he was doing.

"Do you feel ill, sir?" I inquired. "Jane, I've got a blow; I've got a
blow, Jane!" He staggered. "Oh, lean on me, sir." "Jane, you
offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now."
"Yes, sir, yes; and my arm." He sat down, and made me sit beside
him. Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it; gazing on
me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary look.
"My little friend!" said he, "I wish I were in a quiet island
with only you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections
removed from me."

"Can I help you, sir? I'd give my life to serve you." "Jane, if aid is
wanted, I'll seek it at your hands; I promise you that." "Thank you,
sir. Tell me what to do, I'll try, at least, to do it." "Fetch me now,
Jane, a glass of wine from the dining room: they will be at supper
there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is doing."

I went. I found all the party in the dining room at supper, as Mr.
Rochester had said; they were not seated at table, the supper was
arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they
stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in
their hands. Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation
were general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking
to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them. I
filled a wine glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did
so: she thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned
to the library.

Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once
more firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand. "Here is to your
health, ministrant spirit!" he said. He swallowed the contents and
returned it to me. "What are they doing, Jane?" "Laughing and talking,
sir." "They don't look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard
something strange?" "Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety."
"And Mason?" "He was laughing too."

"If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you
do, Jane?" "Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could." He half smiled.
"But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me coldly, and
whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then dropped off and
left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?" "I rather
think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with you."
"To comfort me?" "Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could."

"And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?" "I, probably,
should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care
nothing about it." "Then, you could dare censure for my sake?"
"I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my
adherence; as you, I am sure, do."

"Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper
in his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show
him in here and then leave me." "Yes, sir." I did his behest. The
company all stared at me as I passed straight among them. I sought
Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him from the room:
I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs.

At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the
visitors repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester's
voice, and heard him say, "This way, Mason; this is your room."
He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was
soon asleep.

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 20.>