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They speak with the broadest accent of the district.

At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other's language.

Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me.

I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born.

My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office.

Much enjoyment I do not expect in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on from day to day.

Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must reply-No: I felt desolate to a degree.

I felt-yes, idiot that I am-I felt degraded.

I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence.

I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw round me.

But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong-that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them.

To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued.

In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.

Meantime, let me ask myself one question-Which is better?-To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort-no struggle;-but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time-for he would-oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while.

He did love me-no one will ever love me so again.

I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace-for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms.

He was fond and proud of me-it is what no man besides will ever be.-But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles-fevered with delusive bliss one hour-suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next-or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains-

"The air was mild, the dew was balm."

While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere long weeping-and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and fatal fury-consequences of my departure-which might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither.

At this thought, I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton-I say lonely, for in that bend of it visible to me there was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived.

I hid my eyes, and leant my head against the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up.

A dog-old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer, as I saw in a moment-was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on me.

I asked him to come in.

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