Quotation from: Villette

Written by: Charlotte Bronte

"He is dead, then?" I inquired in a low voice.

"My dear girl," she said, "one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and
decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband,
would come that night to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see
that moment--I see the snow twilight stealing through the window over
which the curtain was not dropped, for I designed to watch him ride up
the white walk; I see and feel the soft firelight warming me, playing
on my silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own young figure in a
glass. I see the moon of a calm winter night, float full, clear, and
cold, over the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my
grounds. I wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my
breast. The flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet;
the moon was mounting high, but she was still visible from the
lattice; the clock neared ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but
once or twice he had been delayed so long.