ON T H E D A Y following Jane Eyre's betrothal to her master Rochester, Jane finds herself obliged to go him to a silk warehouse at Millcote, where she is ordered to choose half a dozen dresses. Although she makes it clear that she hated business, Jane cannot free herself from it. All she can manage, dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, is a reduction in number of dresses, though these .. . [Rochester] vowed he would select himself. Anxiously, Jane protests and with infinite difficulty secures Rochester's grudging acceptance of her choice: a sober black satin and pearlgray silk. The ordeal is not over; after silk warehouse, Rochester takes Jane to a jeweller's, where the more he bought me, she reports, the more my cheek burned a sense of annoyance and degradation (Bronte [1847] 1985, 296-97).1 The shopping trip to Millcote gently figures Rochester as a domestic despot: he commands and Jane is obliged to obey, though she feels degraded by that obedience. At this point in narrative, Jane is not yet aware that in planning to marry her Rochester is consciously choosing to