Be jakers, what are they hushing at—and staring at me as if I wor a Roschicrucian.

I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me--because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction--because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation.

He only had a surface-level understanding of the problem.

Once he got to Main Street, the street lamps puddled pale gold circles directly beneath their poles, closehanded as a string of misers, but Mason avoided even the edges of their light.