简爱 Jane92 - Chapter 23 My Past Returns

　　简爱 Jane 92

　　PART FOUR - LIFE AT MOOR HOUSE

　　CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

　　My Past Returns

　　Diana, Mary, and I had a wonderful Christmas week. We took walks on the moors, read, and sang together. We were even happier to know that we were independent women now, because of our new money. But St. John did not join us in our fun. He continued to study all the time, and visited the sick and poor as he had always done. "St. John, are you still going to leave us and become a missionary?" Diana asked him one day, a little sadly. "Nothing will change my plans," he told his sister. "I will leave England in a few months."

　　"And Rosamund Oliver?" asked Mary gently.

　　"What about her? She is going to marry a Mr. Granby. Her father tells me he is a very nice young man." St. John's face was calm, and his mind was thinking about other things. With surprise, I realized he no longer loved Rosamund. Somehow, he had pushed her out of his heart.

　　Soon our lives at Moor House returned to normal, once Christmas was over. We began to study the things that interested us again, such as languages and drawing. However, St. John began to spend more time with Diana, Mary and I sometimes I thought he was watching me. One day when I was alone, he said to me, "Jane, would you learn the Hindustani language with me? I'll need it for my work in India, and you can help me to learn it by studying with me. You don't need German, anyway. You will be a good partner for me, because you study harder than my sisters do." It seemed important to him, so I began to study Hindustani. Diana and Mary were surprised that I had stopped learning German.