A splendid Midsummer shone land: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had e from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, trasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.
On Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day, had goo bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:- 「Day its fervid fires had wasted,」 and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state—pure of the pomp of clouds—spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, aending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a o and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beh the horizon.
I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-know— that of a cigar—stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a hah; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; oher, a beech avenue sed it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fes sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse- chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, ehere by the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed— not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.
Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of inse: this new st is her of shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester』s cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no ing step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay long: he will soourn whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.
But ide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; arolls on, now lifting the gooseberry- tree brao look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to iheir fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester』s foot: he sees it, and bends to exami.
「Now, he has his back towards me,」 thought I, 「and he is occupied too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I slip