I said to one of them: "But you are not correct; you have a black dress certainly, but I don't think pearl-grey gloves are proper for such an occasion."

The pearl-grey dawn was flowering into a still pink morning when they locked the door behind them and stepped out into the crisp, sweet freshness of the autumn air.

Jane is delightful when she asks Rochester whether the frown on his forehead will be his "married look", and when she tells him to make a dressing-gown for himself out of the pearl-grey silk, "and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the black satin".

The first bright star, the great pearl-grey cloud of the Neva as it was swept into the dark.