f two or three faces I like.
God bless you. I want to see you again. Huzza for Saturday
afternoon after next! Good-night, my lass.

'C. BRONTE.

'Have you lit your pipe with Mr. Weightman's valentine?'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'UPPERWOOD HOUSE, _May_ 4_th_, 1841.

'DEAR NELL,--I have been a long time without writing to you; but I
think, knowing as you do how I am situated in the matter of time, you
will not be angry with me. Your brother George will have told you
that he did not go into the house when we arrived at Rawdon, for
which omission of his Mrs. White was very near blowing me up. She
went quite red in the face with vexation when she heard that the
gentleman had just driven within the gates and then back again, for
she is very touchy in the matter of opinion. Mr. White also seemed
to regret the circumstance from more hospitable and kindly motives.
I assure you, if you were to come and see me you would have quite a
fuss made over you. During the last three weeks that hideous
operation called "a thorough clean" has been going on in the house.
It is now nearly completed, for which I thank my stars, as during its
progress I have fulfilled the twofold character of nurse and
governess, while the nurse has been transmuted into cook and
housemaid. That nurse, by-the-bye, is the prettiest lass you ever
saw, and when dressed has much more the air of a lady than her
mistress. Well can I believe that Mrs. White has been an exciseman's
daughter, and I am convinced also that Mr. White's extraction is very
low. Yet Mrs. White talks in an amusing strain of pomposity about
his and her family and connections, and affects to look down with
wondrous hauteur on the whole race of tradesfolk, as she terms men of
business. I was beginning to think Mrs. White a good sort of body in
spite of all her bouncing and boasting, her bad grammar and worse
orthography, but I have had experience of one little trait in her
character which condemns her a long way with me. After treating a
person in the most familiar terms of equality for a long time, if any
little thing goes wrong she does not scruple to give way to anger in
a very coarse, unladylike manner. I think passion is the tr