A New Beginning: Jane's Cottage and School — Jane Eyre

Jane describes her cottage home and first day at the Morton village school: twenty rough, ignorant children, yet she reminds herself they have the same native excellence as the best-born. Alone that evening she admits she felt degraded and desolate, then weighs life as Rochester's mistress in France against honest poverty here. She reaffirms she was right to choose principle, but weeping at sunset returns when she thinks of Rochester's grief.

St. John Rivers brings pencils and paper from his sisters, notices her tears, and counsels her not to look back like Lot's wife. He speaks of redirecting the mind when forbidden paths are closed, then reveals his own past misery in the ministry and his resolution to become a missionary and leave Europe for the East.

Their talk is interrupted by Rosamond Oliver, the beautiful heiress who furnished Jane's cottage and school. She has come to greet the new mistress, chat gaily of balls and officers, and coax St. John to visit her father. He refuses with visible effort, crushing daisies under his foot while Jane sees brief fire in his eyes before he masters himself. When Rosamond leaves, he never turns to look after her. Jane reflects on Diana's words: he is inexorable as death.