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 to-night or to-morrow: 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 see