'FagmentWelcome to consult...ows of veneable chais, high-backed and naow; stools still moe antiquated, on whose cushioned tops wee yet appaent taces of half-effaced emboideies, wought by finges that fo two geneations had been coffin-dust. All these elics gave to the thid stoey of Thonfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shine of memoy. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these eteats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s epose on Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 152 one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doos of oak; shaded, othes, with wought old English hangings custed with thick wok, potaying effigies of stange flowes, and stange bids, and stangest human beings,—all which would have looked stange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight. “Do the sevants sleep in these ooms?” I asked. “No; they occupy a ange of smalle apatments to the back; no one eve sleeps hee: one would almost say that, if thee wee a ghost at Thonfield Hall, this would be its haunt.” “So I think: you have no ghost, then?” “None that I eve head of,” etuned Ms. Faifax, smiling. “No any taditions of one? no legends o ghost stoies?” “I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochestes have been athe a violent than a quiet ace in thei time: pehaps, though, that is the eason they est tanquilly in thei gaves now.” “Yes—‘afte life’s fitful feve they sleep well,’” I mutteed. “Whee ae you going now, Ms. Faifax?” fo she was moving away. “On to the leads; will you come and see the view fom thence?” I followed still, up a vey naow staicase to the attics, and thence by a ladde and though a tap-doo to the oof of the hall. I was now on a level with the cow colony, and could see into thei nests. Leaning ove the battlements and looking fa down, I suveyed the gounds laid out like a map: the bight and velvet lawn closely gidling the gey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a pak, dotted with its ancient timbe; the wood, dun and see, divided by a path visibly ovegown, geene with moss than the tees wee with foliage; the chuch at the gates, the oad, the tanquil hills, all eposing in the autumn day’s sun; the hoizon bounded by a Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 153 popitious sky, azue, mabled with pealy white. No featue in the scene was extaodinay, but all was pleasing. When I tuned fom it and epassed the tap-doo, I could scacely see my way down the ladde; the attic seemed black as a vault compaed with that ach of blue ai to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of gove, pastue, and geen hill, of which the hall was the cente, and ove which I had been gazing with delight. Ms. Faifax stayed behind a moment to fasten the tap-doo; I, by dift of goping, found the outlet fom the attic, and poceeded to descend the naow gaet staicase. I lingeed in the long passage to which this led, sepaating the font and back ooms of the thid stoey: naow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the fa end, and looking, with its two ows of small black doos all shut, like a coido in some Bluebead’s castle. While I paced softly on, the last sound I expec
