tender "baiting" of Miss Nussey, who had
tried on several occasions to do Charlotte good. And it was the natural,
healthy rebound of the little Irish _gamine_ that lived in Charlotte
Bronte, bursting with cleverness and devilry. I, for my part, am glad to
think that for one happy year she gave it full vent.

She was only twenty-four. Even as late as the mid-Victorian era to be
twenty-four and unmarried was to be middle-aged. But (this cannot be too
much insisted on) Charlotte Bronte was the revolutionist who changed all
that. She changed it not only in her novels but in her person. Here
again she has been misrepresented. There are no words severe enough for
Mrs. Oliphant's horrible portrait of her as a plain-faced, lachrymose,
middle-aged spinster, dying, visibly, to be married, obsessed for ever
with that idea, for ever whining over the frustration of her sex. What
Mrs. Oliphant, "the married woman", resented in Charlotte Bronte, over
and above her fame, was Charlotte's unsanctioned knowledge of the
mysteries, her intrusion into the veiled places, her unbaring of the
virgin heart. That her genius was chiefly concerned in it does not seem
to have occurred to Mrs. Oliphant, any more than it occurred to her to
notice the impression that Charlotte Bronte made on her male
contemporaries. It is doubtful if one of them thought of her as Mrs.
Oliphant would have us think. They gave her the tender, deferent
affection they would have given to a charming child. Even the very
curates saw in her, to their amazement, the spirit of undying youth.
Small as a child, and fragile, with soft hair and flaming eyes, and
always the pathetic, appealing plainness of a plain child, with her
child's audacity and shyness, her sudden, absurd sallies and retreats,
she had a charm made the more piquant by her assumption of austerity.
George Henry Lewes was gross and flippant, and he could not see it;
Branwell's friend, Mr. Grundy, was Branwell's friend, and he missed it.
Mrs. Oliphant ranges herself with Mr. Grundy and George Henry Lewes.

But Charlotte's fun was soon over, and she became a nursery-governess
again at Mrs. White's, of Rawdon. Anne was with Mrs. Robinson, at Thorp
Green.

Emily was at Haworth, alone.

That was in eighteen-forty-one. Years after their death a little black
box was found, containing four tiny scraps of paper, undiscovered by
Charlotte when she burnt every line left by Anne and Emily except their
poems. Two of these