Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the thirty-eighth chapter of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

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Welcome to Bite At A Time Books, where we read you your favorite classics one Byte at a Time.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

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You can catch us on all the social medias at Bite At A Time Books.

We are now part of the Bite At A Time Books Productions Network.

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite At the Time Books Behind the Story.

Wherever you listen to podcasts.

Today, we will be finishing Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Chapter 38 Conclusion Reader I married him a quiet wedding we had.

He and I, the Parson and clerk, were alone present.

When we got back from Church.

I went into the kitchen of the Manor house where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said, Mary, I have been married to Mr.

Rochester this morning.

The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people to whom 1 may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment, Mary did look up, and she did stare at me.

The ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air, and for the same space of time.

John's knives also had rest from the polishing process, but Mary, bending again over the roast, said, Only, have you, miss?

Well, for sure.

A short time after she pursued, I see you go out with the master.

But I didn't know you were gone to Church to be Wed, and she based it away.

John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.

I told Mary how it would be.

He said, I knew what Mr.

Edward.

John was an old servant and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house.

Therefore he often gave him his Christian name.

I knew what Mr.

Edward would do, and I was certain he would not wait long neither, and he's done right for Aught.

I know.

I wish you joy, miss, and he politely pulled his forelock.

Thank you, John.

Mr.

Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.

I put into his hand a five pound note.

Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen and passing the door of that sanctum.

Sometime after I caught the words she'll happen to better for him nor any of the grand ladies.

And again, if she bent one of the handsomest, she's nonfull and very good natured, and in the Ein she's very beautiful.

Anybody may see that.

I wrote some Morehouse and to Cambridge immediately to say what I had done, fully, explaining also why I had thus acted.

Diana and Mary approved the step.

Unreservedly, Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and see me.

She'd better not wait till then, Jane, said Mr.

Rochester, when I read her letter to him.

If she does, she'll be too late, for our honeymoon will shine our lifelong.

Its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.

How St.

John received the news I don't know.

He never answered the letter in which I communicated it.

Yet six months after he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr.

Rochester's name or alluding to my marriage.

His letter was then calm and, though very serious, kind.

He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since.

He hopes I am happy and trusts I am not of those who live without God in the world, and only mind earthly things.

You have not quite forgotten, little Adele, have you, reader?

I had not.

I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr.

Rochester to go and see her at the school where he had placed her.

Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me much.

She looked pale and thin.

She said she was not happy.

I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age.

I took her home with me.

I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable.

My time and cares were now required by another.

My husband needed them all, so I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system and near enough to permit of my visiting her often and bringing her home.

Sometimes I took care she should never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort.

She soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies as she grew up.

A sound English education corrected in a great measure her French defects, and when she left school I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion.

Docile, good tempered, and wellprincipled by her grateful attention to me and mine.

She has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had in my power to offer her.

My tail draws to its clothes one word respecting my experience of married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative.

And I have done.

I have now been married ten years.

I know what it is to live entirely for, and with what I love best on Earth.

I hold myself supremely blessed, blessed beyond what language can express.

Because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine.

No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

I know no weariness of my Edward society.

He knows none of mine any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms.

Consequently, we are ever together.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.

We talk, I believe, all day long.

To talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.

All my confidence is bestowed on him.

All his confidence is devoted to me.

We are precisely suited in character.

Perfect Concord is the result, Mr.

Rochester continued blind the first two years of our Union.

Perhaps it was the circumstance that drew us so very near that knit us so very close.

For I was then his vision as I am still his right hand.

Literally, I was what he often called me, the Apple of his eye.

He saw nature.

He saw books through me, and never did I, weary of gazing for his behalf and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, Sunbeam of the landscape before us, of the weather round us, and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye.

Never did I weary of reading to him.

Never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go, of doing for him what he wished to be done.

And there was a pleasure in my services most full, most exquisite.

Even though sad because he claimed these services without painful shame or dampening humiliation.

He loved me so truly that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance.

He felt I loved him so fondly that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.

One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me and said, Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your neck?

I had a gold watch chain.

I answered, yes.

And have you a pale blue dress on?

I had.

He informed me then that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding.

One eye was becoming less dense, and that now he was sure of it.

He and I went up to London.

He had the advice of an eminent Oculus, and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye.

He cannot now see very distinctly.

He cannot read or write much, but he can find his way without being led by the hand.

The sky is no longer a blank to him, the Earth no longer a void.

When his first born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes as they once were large, brilliant and black.

On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy.

My Edward and I then are happy, and the more so because those we most love are happy.

Likewise.

Diana and Mary Rivers are both married alternately.

Once every year they come to see us and we go to see them.

Diana's husband is a captain in the Navy, a gallant officer and a good man.

Mary's is a clergyman, a College friend of her brothers, and from his attainments and principals worthy of the connection.

Both Captain Fitz, James and Mr.

Wharton love their wives and are loved by them.

As to St.

John Rivers, he left England.

He went to India.

He entered on the path he had marked for himself.

He pursues it still a more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers.

Firm, faithful and devoted, full of energy and zeal and truth, he labours for his race.

He clears their painful way to improvement.

He hugs down like a giant the prejudices of Creed and cast that enumerate.

He may be stern, he may be exacting.

He may be ambitious yet, but his is the sternness of the warrior great heart who guards his Pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of a Polyon.

His is the exaction of the Apostle who speaks but for Christ.

When he says, Whosoever will come after me?

Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

His is the ambition of the high Master spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the Earth, who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called and chosen and faithful.

St.

John is unmarried.

He never will marry.

Now himself has hitherto suffice to the toil, and the toil draws near its clothes.

His glorious son hastens to its setting.

The last letter I received from him drew from my eyes human tears and yet filled my heart with divine joy.

He anticipated his shore reward his incorruptible Crown.

I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord.

And why weep for this?

No fear of death will darken St.

John's last hour.

His mind will be unclouded.

His heart will be undaunted.

His hope will be sure.

His faith steadfast.

His own words are a pledge of this.

My master, he says, has forewarned me.

Daily, he announces more distinctly, surely I come quickly and hourly.

I more eagerly respond, Amen.

Even so, come.

Lord Jesus, thank you for joining bite at a Time books today while we read a Byte of one of your favorite classics.

If you enjoy our show, be sure to follow us so you get all the new episodes.

If you want to see exclusive behind the scenes of our show.

Join our Patreon we would also love for you to drop us a rating on your favorite podcast platform and share our show with your friends.

You can catch us on all the social medias at Byte atotimebooks also be sure to check us on our website, www.biteimebooks.com.

We are now part of the Byte At A Time Books Productions Network if you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite At a Time Books Behind the Story Tuesdays wherever you listen to podcasts again.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I hope you come back tomorrow while we take a new bite of the time machine.