Jane Eyre

is always more satisfactory to see important points written down, fairly committed to black and white.«
    And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermilion, the ravished margin of the portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words »JANE EYRE« – the work doubtless of some moment of abstraction.
    »Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:« he said, »the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott. – I confess I had my suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the
alias?
«
    »Yes – yes – but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr. Rochester than you do.«
    »Briggs is in London; I should doubt his knowing anything at all about Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime, you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why Mr. Briggs sought after you – what he wanted with you.«
    »Well, what did he want?«
    »Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich – merely that – nothing more.«
    »I! rich?«
    »Yes, you, rich – quite an heiress.«
    Silence succeeded.
    »You must prove your identity of course,« resumed St John, presently: »a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary documents.«
    Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth – a very fine thing: but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving:
this
is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares – and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.
    Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead – my only relative; ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious – yes, I felt that –
that
thought swelled my heart.
    »You unbend your forehead at last,« said Mr. Rivers: »I thought Medusa had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone – perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?«
    »How much am I worth?«
    »Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of – twenty thousand pounds, I think they say – but what is that?«
    »Twenty thousand pounds?«
    Here was a new stunner – I had been calculating on four or five thousand. This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St John, whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed now.
    »Well,« said he, »if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast.«
    »It is a large sum – don't you think there is a mistake?«
    »No mistake at all.«
    »Perhaps you have read the figures wrong – it may be 2000!«
    »It is written in letters, not figures, – twenty thousand.«
    I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical powers, sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.
    »If it were not such a very wild night,« he said, »I would send Hannah down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I: her legs are not quite so long: so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows. Good-night.«
    He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me.
    »Stop one minute!« I cried.
    »Well?«
    »It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or