I went to see her,
and asked how she could give so much for so little money, when she could
live without it. She owned that, after clothing herself and Anne, there
was nothing left, though she had hoped to be able to save something. She
confessed it was not brilliant, but what could she do? I had nothing to
answer. She seemed to have no interest or pleasure beyond the feeling of
duty, and, when she could get, used to sit alone, and 'make out.' She
told me afterwards, that one evening she had sat in the dressing-room
until it was quite dark, and then observing it all at once, had taken
sudden fright." No doubt she remembered this well when she described a
similar terror getting hold upon Jane Eyre. She says in the story, "I
sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls--occasionally turning
a fascinated eye towards the gleaming mirror--I began to recall what I
had heard of dead men troubled in their graves . . . I endeavoured to be
firm; shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look
boldly through the dark room; at this moment, a ray from the moon
penetrated some aperture in the blind. No! moon light was still, and
this stirred . . . prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my
nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift-darting beam was a herald
of some coming vision from another world.
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