Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each
of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got
up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper,
disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.

"I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you," said she,
"but as there is so little toast, you must have it now," and she
proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.

We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least
delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which
our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the
delicate fare she liberally supplied.

Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat
one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between her and
Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear.

Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her
mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation
into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the
pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling
sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to Helen Burns, I was
struck with wonder.

The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her
beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her
own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they
kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till
this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the
liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more
singular than that of Miss Temple's--a beauty neither of fine colour nor
long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of
radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what
source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough,
vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid
eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to
me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very
brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence.

They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past;
of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at:
they spoke of books: how many they had read!