Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 3.djvu/163

CHAPTER VII.

 

When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow: the whirling storm continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding falls: by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down Marmion and beginning—

"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot mountains lone;
The massive towers, the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round them sweep,
In yellow lustre shone."

I soon forgot storm in music.

I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St. John Rivers, who,