A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they reentered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.

“Do you know,” said she, “that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!”

“Is all the soot washed from my face?” he asked, turning it towards her.

“Alas! yes: the more’s the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian’s rouge.”

“You would like a hero of the road then?”

“An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate.”