CHAPTER XXXVIII -- 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 one 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 -
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