All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory.

I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,--all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
"Do the servants sleep in these rooms ?" I asked.
"No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt." "So I think: you have no ghost, then ?" "None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs.Fairfax, smiling.
"Nor any traditions of one?
no legends or ghost stories ?" "I believe not.

And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now." "Yes--'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered.

"Where are you going now, Mrs.Fairfax ?" for she was moving away.
"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence ?" I followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall.

I was now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests.