第271页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第271页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can
offer.'
'She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she
can do,' answered Diana for me; 'and you know, St. John, she has no
choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people
as you.'
'I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a
servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better,' I answered.
'Right,' said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. 'If such is your
spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and way.'
He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.
I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my
present strength would permit.
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CHAPTER XXX
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THE more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked
them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could
sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and
Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as they
wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There was a
reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me
for the first time- the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality
of tastes, sentiments, and principles.
I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed,
delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their
sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure,
with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its
avenue of aged firs- all grown aslant under the stress of mountain
winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly- and where no flowers but
of the hardiest species would bloom- found a charm both potent and
permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind and around their
dwelling- to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading
from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first,
and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that
ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock
of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs:- they
clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I
could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I
saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the consecration of its
loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep- on the
wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by
heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow
granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to them- so
many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft
breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and
sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in