aërial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden
rose: call it 'Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.'

"Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr.
Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures
and compare them: say, 'Mr. Rochester might probably
win that noble lady's love, if he chose to strive for it; is it
likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and
insignificant plebeian?'"

"I'll do it," I resolved; and having framed this deter-
mination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.

I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my
own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had
completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche
Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared
with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as
self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task: it
had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force
and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp
indelibly on my heart.

Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course
of wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feel-
ings to submit: thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent
occurrences with a decent calm; which, had they found me
unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to main-
tain, even externally.

A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten
days; and still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should
not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to
London, and thence to the continent, and not show his face
again at Thornfield for a year to come: he had not unfre-
quently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unex-
pected. When I heard this I was beginning to feel a strange
chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting
myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment:
but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at
once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful
how I got over the temporary blunder—how I cleared up

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