did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock A. M.; and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive, before I assigned to her all that property. It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil, pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut the closet, to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour—nine o'clock—gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. "I will leave you by yourself, white dream," I said. "I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing; I will go out of doors and feel it."
It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great change—the new life which was to commence to-morrow; both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which
