watch him from the kitchen door. If Mr. Nicholls be a good man at
bottom, it is a sad thing that nature has not given him the faculty
to put goodness into a more attractive form. Into the bargain of all
the rest he managed to get up a most pertinacious and needless
dispute with the Inspector, in listening to which all my old
unfavourable impressions revived so strongly, I fear my countenance
could not but shew them.

'Dear Nell, I consider that on the whole it is a mercy you have been
at home and not at Norfolk during the late cold weather. Love to all
at Brookroyd.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_March_ 9_th_, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I am sure Miss Wooler would enjoy her visit to you, as
much as you her company. Dear Nell, I thank you sincerely for your
discreet and friendly silence on the point alluded to. I had feared
it would be discussed between you two, and had an inexpressible
shrinking at the thought; now less than ever does it seem a matter
open to discussion. I hear nothing, and you must quite understand
that if I feel any uneasiness it is not that of confirmed and fixed
regard, but that anxiety which is inseparable from a state of
absolute uncertainty about a somewhat momentous matter. I do not
know, I am not sure myself, that any other termination would be
better than lasting estrangement and unbroken silence. Yet a good
deal of pain has been and must be gone through in that case.
However, to each his burden.

'I have not yet read the papers; D.V. I will send them
to-morrow.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.

'Understand that in whatever I have said above, it was not for pity
or sympathy. I hardly pity myself. Only I wish that in all matters
in this world there was fair and open dealing, and no underhand
work.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _April_ 6_th_, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--My visit to Manchester is for the present put off by
Mr. Morgan having written to say that since papa will not go to
Buckingham to see him he will come to Yorkshire to see papa; when, I
don't yet know, and I trust in goodness he will not stay long