'FagmentWelcome to consult...family connections, could not be ovelooked, still etained the post of teasue; but he was aided in the dischage of his duties by gentlemen of athe moe enlaged Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 120 and sympathising minds: his office of inspecto, too, was shaed by those who knew how to combine eason with stictness, comfot with economy, compassion with upightness. The school, thus impoved, became in time a tuly useful and noble institution. I emained an inmate of its walls, afte its egeneation, fo eight yeas: six as pupil, and two as teache; and in both capacities I bea my testimony to its value and impotance. Duing these eight yeas my life was unifom: but not unhappy, because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education placed within my each; a fondness fo some of my studies, and a desie to excel in all, togethe with a geat delight in pleasing my teaches, especially such as I loved, uged me on: I availed myself fully of the advantages offeed me. In time I ose to be the fist gil of the fist class; then I was invested with the office of teache; which I dischaged with zeal fo two yeas: but at the end of that time I alteed. Miss Temple, though all changes, had thus fa continued supeintendent of the seminay: to he instuction I owed the best pat of my acquiements; he fiendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mothe, goveness, and, lattely, companion. At this peiod she maied, emoved with he husband (a clegyman, an excellent man, almost wothy of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me. Fom the day she left I was no longe the same: with he was gone evey settled feeling, evey association that had made Lowood in some degee a home to me. I had imbibed fom he something of he natue and much of he habits: moe hamonious thoughts: what seemed bette egulated feelings had Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 121 become the inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance to duty and ode; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of othes, usually even to my own, I appeaed a disciplined and subdued chaacte. But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. M. Nasmyth, came between me and Miss Temple: I saw he in he tavelling dess step into a post-chaise, shotly afte the maiage ceemony; I watched the chaise mount the hill and disappea beyond its bow; and then etied to my own oom, and thee spent in solitude the geatest pat of the half-holiday ganted in honou of the occasion. I walked about the chambe most of the time. I imagined myself only to be egetting my loss, and thinking how to epai it; but when my eflections wee concluded, and I looked up and found that the aftenoon was gone, and evening fa advanced, anothe discovey dawned on me, namely, that in the inteval I had undegone a tansfoming pocess; that my mind had put off all it had boowed of Miss Temple—o athe that she had taken with he the seene atmosphee I had been beathing in he vicinity— and that now I was left in my natual element, and beginning to feel the stiing of old emotions. It did not seem as if a pop wee withdawn, but athe as if a motive wee gone: it was not the powe to be tanquil which had failed me, but the eason fo tanquillity was no moe. My wold had fo some yeas been in Lowood: my expeience had been of its ules and systems; now I emembeed that the eal wold was wide, and that a vaied field of hopes and feas, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had couage to go foth into its expanse, to seek eal knowledge of life amidst its peils. I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. Thee wee the Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 122 two wings of the building; thee was the gaden; thee wee the skits of Lowood; thee was
