d it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing.

"Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here: come and let
us see if she will know you."

I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had so
often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days. I
hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light stood on
the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great four-post
bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, the armchair,
and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to
kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a
certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim outline of a once
dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out imp-like and
lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened
the curtains and leant over the high-piled pillows.

Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the familiar
image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance
and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman in
bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion
than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to
forget and forgive all injuries--to be reconciled and clasp hands in
amity.

The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever--there was that
peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised,
imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and
hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows revived
as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and kissed her:
she looked at me.

"Is this Jane Eyre?" she said.

"Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?"

I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it no
sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her
hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should
at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable
natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily
eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face rather
from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me so
icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me--her feeling towards me--was
unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye--opaque to
tendernes