Jane Eyre Quiz Chapters Twenty-One to Thirty

1. Jane Eyre Quiz Chapters Twenty-One to Thirty

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2.

Learning Objective
To learn the story of Jane Eyre in detail.
.
Success Criteria
• All pupils will be able to recount the events in each chapter.
• Most pupils will be able to use quotes in their answers.
• Some pupils will be able to embed quotes in their answers.

3.

Chapter 21
1. Why is Jane nervous about her dreams about a child?
2. Did the dreams herald bad news? What piece of news did Jane receive first?
3. What piece of news did Jane receive next?
4. What does Jane request that Mr Rochester does before he is married?
5. Describe Aunt Reed’s attitude to Jane when she was a baby.
6. What does Aunt Reed confess to Jane?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

4.

Chapter 21 - Answers
1. Why is Jane nervous about her dreams of a child?
Jane is nervous about her dreams of a child as she remembers and incident in her
past when Bessie had told Martha that she had been ‘dreaming about a little child’
and that such dreams were ‘a sure sign of trouble’. Shortly after, Bessie was sent for
from home because her little sister was dying. This made an impression on the
six-year-old Jane and she had always remembered it. Now Jane thinks her own
dreams might signify something horrible is going to happen and feels ‘nervous as
bedtime approached.’
2. Do the dreams herald bad news? What piece of news does Jane receive first?
Yes, it seems that the dreams are a premonition. Shortly afterwards, Jane has a visit
from Bessie’s husband Robert, telling her of Mr John’s death. He says the family is in
a bad way as ‘his life has been very wild’ and ‘He got into debt and into jail’. Most
shocking of all, Robert passes on the suspicion that ‘…they say he killed himself.’

5.

Chapter 21 - Answers
3. What piece of news does Jane receive next?
Jane is told that her Aunt Reed has had a stroke and ‘she was three days without
speaking’. This improved and eventually she is able to tell Bessie that she wants to
see Jane saying ‘I want to speak to her.’
4. What does Jane request of Mr Rochester before he is married?
Jane wishes Mr Rochester to send Adèle to school and says she will advertise for
another job so as to be ‘safe out of the house before your bride enters it.’ In the
event, Rochester says he will find her another position and she must promise him
‘not to advertise’.

6.

Chapter 21 - Answers
5. Describe Aunt Reed’s attitude to Jane when she was a baby.
Aunt Reed did not like Jane even when she was a small baby. Aunt Reed disliked
Jane’s mother because ‘she was my husband’s only sister, and a great favourite’ and
so she was predisposed not to like Jane. She says she ‘hated it the first time I set my
eyes on it’ - ‘it’ being baby Jane who she does not even honour with the correct
pronoun. This became worse as her husband ‘pitied it; and he used to nurse it and
notice it as if it had been his own’. Mr Reed encouraged the other children to be kind
to Jane and ‘was angry with them when they showed their dislike’. Just before he died,
Mr Reed made his wife promise to keep the baby and treat the child like her own.

7.

Chapter 21 - Answers
6. What does Aunt Reed confess to Jane?
Aunt Reed confesses that that she has ‘twice done you [Jane] a wrong’. First, she did
not keep her promise to her husband to ‘bring you up as my own child’. Secondly, she
had received a letter from Jane’s uncle on her father’s side, John Eyre. In it he said he
would adopt her and leave her his estate when he died. The letter was ‘dated three
years back’. Aunt Reed did not want Jane to have a comfortable life; ‘I disliked you too
fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity.’ Aunt Reed
freely admits ‘I took my revenge,’ and wrote to Jane’s uncle to say that she had died
of Typhus at Lowood.

8.

Chapter 22
1. What do the two Reed sisters, Eliza and Georgiana, do with their lives after
their mother’s death?
2. How does Jane feel when she sees Rochester?
3. What does Jane say, on impulse, to Mr Rochester?
4. What is strange about Mr Rochester’s activities?
5. What does Jane feel about Mr Rochester now?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

9.

Chapter 22 - Answers
1. What do the two Reed sisters, Eliza and Georgiana, do with their lives after their
mother’s death?
Eliza becomes a Roman Catholic nun ‘in a religious house near Lisle’ which is in
France. She eventually rises to ‘superior of the convent’ so she is in charge of the rest
of the nuns. Georgiana marries a ‘wealthy, worn-out man of fashion’ which Jane
describes as ‘advantageous’, therefore it sounds like Georgiana gets what she wanted
in the end, a rich husband.
2. How does Jane feel when she sees Rochester?
When Jane sees Rochester, she behaves as if she has seen a ghost. She says she is
trembling and she is amazed to find herself reacting so. She did not think she would
‘lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence.’ She takes some comfort that
her facial expressions are hidden behind a veil allowing her to ‘behave with decent
composure.’

10.

Chapter 22 - Answers
3. What does Jane say, on impulse, to Mr Rochester?
Jane thanks Rochester for his kindness and tells him she is ‘strangely glad’ to be back
with him. She also says that ‘wherever you are is my home - my only home.’ This
seems to mean that he is the most important person in the household to her and that
it is a home only when he is in it.
4. What is strange about Mr Rochester’s activities?
Mr Rochester’s activities are strange because he does not seem to be making
preparations for a marriage. Jane expects him to visit his fiancée often and yet there
were ‘no journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park’.
5. What does Jane feel about Mr Rochester now?
Jane is sent for by Mr Rochester very often in this time and says he has ‘never been
kinder to me when there’. Jane declares, ‘never had I loved him so well.’

11.

Chapter 23
1. How does Jane know that Rochester is near her?
2. Where does Rochester say Jane must go and how does she feel about it?
3. How does Rochester describe his ‘regard’ for Jane?
4. Why does Jane ‘grieve’?
5. What surprise does Jane get and does she react to it?
6. What happens to the horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

12.

Chapter 23 - Answers
1. How does Jane know that Rochester is near her?
Jane knows Rochester is near because she can smell the smoke of his cigar. She is
aware he is getting nearer as ‘that perfume increases’.
2. Where does Rochester say Jane must go and how does she feel about it?
Rochester says he is to marry and Jane will go to teach ‘five daughters of Mrs Dionysius
O’Gall’ in Ireland. Jane is very upset, ‘my tears gushed out’. She dislikes the idea of the
sea separating her from Rochester and she does not want to go to Mrs O’Gall. The
thought of it ‘struck cold to my heart’ because of the distance that would be between
her and ‘what I naturally and inevitably loved.’

13.

Chapter 23 - Answers
3. How does Rochester describe his ‘regard’ for Jane?
He describes his regard for Jane as a ‘string somewhere under my left ribs’, where his
heart is, and he says the string is ‘knotted’ to another string which is ‘situated in the
corresponding quarter of your little frame.’ He seems to say that he and Jane are joined
at the heart. He says that if she went far away from him, the string would snap and he
would bleed ‘inwardly’. He says Jane would ‘forget me.’
4. Why does Jane ‘grieve’?
Jane grieves to ‘leave Thornfield’ as she thinks she must when Rochester marries. She
says ‘I love it’, however she is really expressing her love for Rochester.

14.

Chapter 23 - Answers
5. What surprise does Jane get and does she react to it?
Rochester surprises Jane by telling her he has no plans to marry Miss Ingram at all,
and in fact ‘it is you only I intend to marry.’ At first, Jane thinks Rochester is mocking
her so she pulls away and ‘writhed myself from his grasp’. Rochester gets annoyed and
passionately says: ‘What love have I for Miss Ingram? None’ but Jane, ‘I love as my own
flesh.’ In the end Jane begins to believe but asks many questions ‘Are you in earnest?
Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?’ Once Rochester
assures her that he does, she consents. ‘Then, sir, I will marry you.’
6. What happens to the horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard?
The horse-chestnut tree is hit by lightning in a violent storm during the night and ‘half
of it split away’. The storm started after Rochester proposed to Jane.

15.

Chapter 24
1. What change does Jane notice in herself the next morning?
2. What are Rochester’s plans for Jane? How does she respond?
3. How does Mrs Fairfax take the news of the wedding?
4. What gives Jane a feeling of ‘annoyance and degradation’?
5. How does she resolve to fix this?
6. How does Jane treat Rochester leading up to their wedding?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

16.

Chapter 24 - Answers
1. What change does Jane notice in herself the next morning?
When she is doing her hair in the mirror, Jane feels that her face is ‘no longer plain’, and
because she is happy and hopeful for the future ‘there was hope in its aspect’. She is
sure Rochester will find her attractive now and that her face will not ‘cool his affection
by its expression.’
2. What are Rochester’s plans for Jane? How does she respond?
Rochester plans to send for the family jewels and ‘pour them into your lap’; this is a
sign of his esteem for Jane. However, Jane is appalled by the idea. ‘Jewels for Jane Eyre
sounds unnatural and strange’ she says and tells him she does not want them.
Rochester goes on to say he ‘will make the world acknowledge you a beauty’ and again
Jane is not happy about this. She describes herself as ‘a jay in borrowed plumes’ if she
were to wear jewels, satin and lace as Rochester desires.

17.

Chapter 24 - Answers
3. How does Mrs Fairfax take the news of the wedding?
Mrs Fairfax is unexpectedly reserved about the marriage. Jane finds her staring at the
‘blank wall opposite’ and when she saw Jane she ‘made a sort of effort to smile’ as if
she is having to force herself. She couldn’t finish her congratulations ‘the sentence was
abandoned unfinished’. Mrs Fairfax says she cannot believe it and thinks she may have
dreamed it. She says ‘It passes me!’ which suggests that she doesn’t understand how
this could have happened. She points out that Rochester is 20 years older than Jane
and could be her father and questions her again, ‘Is it really for love he is going to
marry you?’ Jane feels ‘nettled’ at this and ‘hurt by her coldness’, but Mrs Fairfax warns
Jane saying ‘keep Mr. Rochester at a distance’.
4. What gives Jane a feeling of ‘annoyance and degradation’?
Mr Rochester takes Jane to town to buy her jewellery and dresses. Jane does not feel
comfortable with this and says the ‘more he bought me, the more my cheek burned
with a sense of annoyance and degradation.’ Jane does not like fine silks and jewels,
she like to be independent.

18.

Chapter 24 - Answers
5. How does she resolve to fix this?
Jane recalls that she has an uncle in Madeira and decides to write to him, telling him
she is to be married. She feels if she knew she had an ‘accession of fortune’ to come ‘I
could better endure to be kept by him [Rochester] now.’ This means that as long as she
knows she will have some money in the future to contribute to the Rochester estate,
she won’t mind Mr Rochester paying for everything now.
6. How does Jane treat Rochester leading up to their wedding’?
Jane is almost cruel to Rochester in the weeks before the wedding, using her ‘needle of
repartee’ to keep him at a distance, she doesn’t give in to his sentiment and she won’t
kiss him, saying ‘No: I would rather be excused.’ She tells him she is ‘…very flinty, and
that he would often find me so’. Jane seems to be attempting to hold his interest by
keeping him at arm’s length and this made him ‘rather cross and crusty’ but Jane
believes if she ‘fostered his despotism’, allowed him to lord it over her, buy her things
and try to impress her, it actually wouldn’t have pleased him and would have ‘suited his
taste less.’

19.

Chapter 25
1. Why does Jane not fix the address cards to her trunks?
2. Why does Jane go outside and what does she talk to?
3. Describe Jane’s dreams from the night before.
4. What happened when Jane woke up?
5. What is Rochester’s explanation?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

20.

Chapter 25 - Answers
1. Why does Jane not fix the address cards to her trunks?
The address cards are labelled ‘Mrs Rochester’ and it seems Jane doesn’t want to
tempt fate by putting them on the luggage. She says ‘I would wait to be assured she
had come into the world alive…’ before using the labels. Jane still seems hardly able to
believe she will be Mrs Rochester.
2. Why does Jane go outside and what does she talk to?
The weather is wild and windy and Jane goes out because she has something on her
mind which she hasn’t yet revealed. The wind makes her feel better, as she casts her
troubles in to the ‘measureless air torrent thundering through space.’ She talks to the
horse-chestnut tree which split in two on the night that Rochester proposed to her. She
notes that although it is split, the roots are still joined so ‘each of you has a comrade to
sympathise with him in his decay.’ The two halves are dead, apart, but still have some
togetherness, albeit under the ground.

21.

Chapter 25 - Answers
3. Describe Jane’s dreams from the night before?
Jane tells of two dreams during the night which disturbed her. She first dreamed that
she was on a long road with a small child trying to catch up to Mr Rochester, but she
couldn’t. The second dream was of Thornfield Hall as a ruin with only a ‘shell-like wall,
very high and very fragile looking.’ Jane still had the child with her but heard Rochester
galloping away. When she climbed the wall to see ‘the stones rolled from under my
feet.’ She saw Rochester as a speck of white and then the wall collapsed.
4. What happened when Jane woke up?
When Jane wakes, someone is in her bedroom. The person puts on Jane’s wedding veil
and looks in the mirror. She describes the face as awful ‘red eyes and fearful blackened
inflation of the lineaments’ and decides it must be a ‘Vampyre’. It took off the veil and
tore it in two, threw the pieces onto the floor and ‘trampled on them’. As the figure
turned to the door, it stopped at Jane’s bed to look at her and ‘the fiery eyes glared
upon me’. She says ‘I lost consciousness: for the second time in my life…I became
insensible from terror.’

22.

Chapter 25 - Answers
5. What is Rochester’s explanation?
At first Rochester says that Jane’s vision must have been a nightmare, but Jane
points out that the veil was torn in two when she got up in the morning. Rochester
then resolves on an explanation that it was Grace Poole who entered Jane’s
bedroom and tore the veil and that the appearance of the woman as a ‘goblin’ were
‘figments of imagination’. He says the event must have been ‘half dream, half reality.’
He asks Jane to sleep in the nursery with Adèle so as not to be alone on the night
before their wedding.

23.

Chapter 26
1. What shock occurs during the marriage ceremony?
2. How does Mr Briggs prove his shocking claim?
3. What does Rochester say about Bertha’s state of mind and her family
background?
4. How does Bertha react when she sees Rochester?
5. How does Mr Mason find out about the marriage?
6. How does Jane describe her love for Rochester now? What does she think
of his love for her?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

24.

Chapter 26 - Answers
1. What shock occurs during the marriage ceremony?
During the ceremony, when the vicar asks if anyone knows of any lawful impediment to
the marriage, a voice speaks up: ‘I declare the existence of an impediment.’ Rochester
tries to make the vicar carry on, but he will not. The stranger reveals that ‘Mr Rochester
has a wife now living’ and of course this means the wedding cannot continue.
2. How does Mr Briggs prove his shocking claim?
Mr Briggs produces a paper written by Mr Mason saying that Rochester was ‘married to
my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason’ in Jamaica. Mr Mason then steps forward as a
witness to the fact that his sister is still alive and living at Thornfield Hall, saying ‘I saw
her there last April.’
3. What does Rochester say about Bertha’s state of mind and her family background?
Rochester is very straightforward in his explanation. ‘Bertha Mason is mad’ and her
family is also mad: ‘idiots and maniacs through three generations!’ He says her
mother was a ‘drunkard’ but that he only found out once he had married her.

25.

Chapter 26 - Answers
4. How does Bertha react when she sees Rochester?
Bertha attacks Rochester. In an attempt and bite and strangle him she ‘laid her teeth to
his cheek’ and was strong and ‘almost throttled him.’ In the end, Rochester catches her
arms and ties them with a rope, then he ‘bound her to a chair.’
5. How does Mr Mason find out about the marriage?
Mr Mason found out about the wedding because he knows Jane’s uncle, John Eyre.
When Jane wrote to tell her uncle of her marriage, he happened to tell Mr Mason who
then told John Eyre ‘the real state of matters.’ Jane’s uncle became ill but asked Mr
Mason to ‘prevent the false marriage.’
6. How does Jane describe her love for Rochester now? What does she think of his love for her?
Jane describes her love as ‘like a suffering child’ unable to seek comfort from
Rochester, ‘never more could it turn to him’. She says her faith has been ‘blighted’ or
ruined and she must leave. She thinks his love cannot have been true ‘Real affection’
and she is sure that ‘he would want me no more.’ Jane blames herself for being ‘weak’.

26.

Chapter 27
1. What, for Jane, is worse than not being able to marry Rochester?
2. Describe how Rochester ended up marrying Bertha.
3. When he was travelling in Europe, what did Rochester hope for?
4. What does he ask Jane to do now?
5. What is Jane’s reply?
6. How does Jane feel about Rochester now?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

27.

Chapter 27 - Answers
1. What, for Jane, is worse than not being able to marry Rochester?
For Jane, worse than not marrying Rochester, is the thought that she must now leave
him forever. She says it is ‘intolerable, I cannot do it’, but argues with herself, urging
that ‘you shall tear yourself away’.
2. Describe how Rochester ended up marrying Bertha.
The Rochester estate would pass to Rochester’s older brother, but his father wanted
his younger son to marry into a rich family so that he would be wealthy too. Bertha’s
father was a friend of Rochester’s father. He was rich and would give his daughter a
‘fortune of thirty thousand pounds’ so Rochester was sent to Jamaica to marry Bertha
Mason. His father did not tell him of the money, but said that Bertha was ‘the boast of
Spanish Town for her beauty’ and Rochester found that she was indeed beautiful. He
did not see her on her own very often but saw her at parties and other social
occasions and in the end, he admits, ‘I thought I loved her.’ Rochester quickly married
Bertha, then found out that her mother was ‘mad, and shut up in a lunatic asylum’ and
one of her brothers was a ‘dumb idiot’. He also discovered that his own father and
brother had known this when they sent him to marry her.

28.

Chapter 27 - Answers
3. When he travelled through Europe, what did Rochester hope for?
As he journeyed, Rochester hoped to find a ‘good and intelligent woman’ to love.
4. What does he ask Jane to do now?
Rochester asks Jane to ‘accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours.’ He wants
them to remain together as if they were man and wife but without being married. He
feels that their love for each other should overcome social conventions.
5. What is Jane’s reply?
Jane says ‘Mr Rochester, I will not be yours.’ She does not agree that it would be
acceptable for them to live together. This is not an easy decision, her feelings tell her
‘Oh, comply!’ but she reasons that although she has no relatives to care what she
does, she cares about what she does and as such will not bend to Rochester’s will.
Jane is very strong and says ‘I respect myself. I will keep the law given by God;
sanctioned by man’ and she sticks to this despite Rochester’s protestations.

29.

Chapter 27 - Answers
6. How does Jane feel about Rochester now?
Jane is more in love with Rochester than ever. She empathises with his story about
Bertha and feels anguished that she has left him and made him unhappy. She says
that she hopes the reader will never ‘dread to be the instrument of evil to what you
wholly love.’ In other words, Jane feels great sorrow that she has caused devastation
to the very person she loves most.

30.

Chapter 28
1. How does Jane spend her first night after the coach sets her down at
Whitcross?
2. Jane follows a light. Describe where she ends up.
3. What happens when Jane has decided ‘I can but die’?
4. The two sisters and St. John go into the parlour to ‘talk the matter over’.
What do they decide to do with Jane?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

31.

Chapter 28 - Answers
1. How does Jane spend her first night after the coach sets her down at Whitcross?
Jane finds herself on moorland at least ten miles from a town so shelters for the night
under a crag. She eats her last piece of bread with some bilberries she finds, says her
prayers and ‘chose my couch’, lying down to sleep. She uses her shawl for a cover and
at first does not feel cold, but cannot sleep because of the ‘inward bleeding’ of her
heart. Eventually, she decides to get to her knees and ‘pray for Mr Rochester.’ She
consoles herself with thoughts of God and her belief in ‘His efficiency to save what He
had made’. She rationalises her thoughts, assuring herself that Rochester is ‘safe’ and
‘by God he would be guarded.’ She finally goes to sleep.

32.

Chapter 28 - Answers
2. Jane follows a light. Describe where she ends up.
The light of a candle leads Jane to a cottage, surrounded by a wall with a white gate.
It has latticed windows and is covered with a ‘growth of ivy or some other creeping
plant’. Through the window she sees a clean room with ‘a dresser of walnut, with
pewter plates’ arranged on it. There is a peat fire, a table, chairs and an old lady
‘knitting a stocking’. There are also two ‘graceful women’ sitting near to the hearth
wearing ‘deep mourning’, the clothes worn when someone has died. There was also a
large pointer dog and a black cat. It is a very cosy scene.
3. What happens when Jane decides ‘I can but die’?
St. John arrives home and hearing Jane speak those words he takes her into the
house. His sisters take pity on Jane and wonder what has happened to her. She looks
poorly, ‘A mere spectre’ so they give Jane bread and milk and try to find out who she
is and where she is from. ‘My name is Jane Elliott’ she says, giving an alias as she
hopes to avoid anyone knowing who she really is.

33.

Chapter 28 - Answers
4. The two sisters and St. John go into the parlour to ‘talk the matter over’. What do
they decide to do with Jane?.
They decide that Jane should spend the night at their house. They tell Hannah, the
servant, to help her. Jane says ‘my dripping clothes were removed’ and she is put into
a ‘warm, dry bed’ where she felt ‘a glow of grateful joy’ and went to sleep.

34.

Chapter 29
1. What is St. John’s diagnosis of Jane’s condition? Is he correct?
2. How does Jane describe St. John as he sits in the parlour with her?
3. Why does Jane end up with none of her personal things?
4. What does St. John promise Jane?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

35.

Chapter 29 - Answers
1. What is St. John’s diagnosis of Jane’s condition? Is he correct?
St. John says that Jane is fatigued, that ‘every nerve had been overstrained in some
way’ and that sleep will be the best remedy. He concludes that there is no illness as
such and that ‘recovery would be rapid enough when once commenced.’ He was
right, Jane sleeps for three days and on the fourth ‘I could speak, move, rise in bed
and turn.’ Once she has eaten the gruel and dry toast brought by Hannah, Jane
manages to get up and ‘resting every five minutes’, dress herself.
2. How does Jane describe St. John as he sits in the parlour with her?
Jane says St. John is young, tall and slim with a ‘Greek face’ like the ‘antique models’,
the statues of ancient Greeks. She says his features are ‘harmonious’ especially
compared to the ‘irregularity’ of her own. He has big, blue eyes, a ‘high forehead’ and
fair hair. Even though he is sitting reading, Jane thinks he is ‘restless’ or ‘eager’ to
be doing something.

36.

Chapter 29 - Answers
3. Why does Jane end up with none of her personal things?
Jane has none of her personal things because she left Thornfield with ‘speed’ and
‘secrecy’ so could not take a great deal with her. She did take a small parcel of
belongings but because of ‘my hurry and trouble of mind’ it was left on the coach
that took her to Whitcross.
4. What does St. John promise Jane?
St. John promises Jane that if she has the ‘spirit’ to do any kind of work, he will ‘aid
you, in my own time and way.’ In other words he will try to get her a job.

37.

Chapter 30
1. What was the difference between Jane’s relationship with Mary and Diana
and her relationship with St. John?
2. What job does St. John offer Jane?
3. What news does St. John bring just before the sisters leave?
4. What sum would have made the sisters consider themselves well off?
Use quotes from the text in your answer.

38.

Chapter 30 - Answers
1. What is the difference between Jane’s relationship with Mary and Diana and her
relationship with St. John?
Jane becomes very close to Mary and Diana, saying they get along very well with
each other. ‘Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short,
perfectly.’ They spent their days reading, drawing and discussing what they had read;
the time went by very quickly and ‘mutual attraction - of the strongest kind - was the
result.’ However, developing a friendship with St. John is not as easy. He is often
away from home visiting parishioners, but Jane gives another reason for her not
becoming friends with him: his ‘reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding
nature.’ She says that although he discharges every duty of a parson and is
‘blameless in his life and habits’, he does not seem content. She sees him caught in
thoughts which are ‘perturbed and exciting’ yet he is ‘uncommunicative’ so Jane
cannot get to know him very easily.

39.

Chapter 30 - Answers
2. What job does St. John offer Jane?
St. John tells Jane that he has previously established a school for boys and has now
rented a building to start a school for girls. He asks Jane to be ‘mistress’ of the
school. Attached to it is a furnished ‘cottage of two rooms’ where she may live and a
salary of ‘thirty pounds a year’.
3. What news does St. John bring just before the sisters leave?
St. John receives a letter saying that their uncle, whom they have never met, has
died. Their father had fallen out with him years before over a business deal gone
wrong and they had not spoken since. The Rivers hoped he might leave them some
money when he died ‘to atone for his error’ but instead he has left all his money to
‘the other relation’ except for thirty guineas.
4. What sum would make the sisters consider themselves well off?
The sisters would have ‘esteemed ourselves rich’ with a thousand pounds each as it
would mean that they no longer needed to work as governesses.

40.

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