 before, had given me this filette Adèle; who
she affirmed was my daughter; and perhaps she may be; though I see no proofs of
such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she.
Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child and ran
away to Italy with a musician, or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on
Adèle's part to be supported by me; nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not
her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e'en took the poor thing
out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in
the wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train
it; but now you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French
opera-girl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and protégée: you
will be coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place -
that you beg me to look out for a new governess, etc. - eh?«
    »No - Adèle is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I
have a regard for her, and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless -
forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir - I shall cling closer to her
than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who
would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans
towards her as a friend?«
    »Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and you
too: it darkens.«
    But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot - ran a race with
her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in and I had
removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour,
allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and
trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed; and which
betrayed in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her
mother, hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was
disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her
countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait,
no turn of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: if
