poor little Charlotte,
and that she was a little 'took up' with his guitar and his verses; but
then, Jane says, 'Charlotte has somewhat at the bottom, and knows
better than to heed a man as wasn't real religious.' I suppose that is
the true difference between Charlotte and Marianne, and even if we
looked into Delaford's history, most likely we should find him another
nineteenth-century victim to an artificial life. At least, I trust
that Jane has been the greatest blessing, Marianne herself speaks of
her as more than a mother to her; and I believe I told you of the poor
girl's overpowering gratitude, when she found we would not turn her out
to die homeless. We read, and we talk, and Mr. Danvers comes; but I
believe dear old Jane does more for her than all.

'Poor Jane! when her task of nursing is over, I do not know what she
will turn to. The grand servants only keep terms with her because
Uncle Oliver gave notice that no one should stay in the house who did
not show respect to his _friend_ Mrs. Beckett. It takes all her love
for Missus and Master Oliver to make her bear it; and her chief solace
is in putting me to bed, and in airing Master Oliver's shirt and
slippers. You would laugh to hear her compassionating the home
minced-pies! and she tells me she would give fifty pounds rather than
bring Charlotte here. My uncle wished grandmamma to manage the house,
and she did so at first, but she and the servants did not get on well
together; and she said, what I never knew her say before, that she is
too old, and so we have an awful dame who rules with a high hand.

'You ask whether the dear granny is happy. You know she is all
elasticity, and things are pleasanter here to her than to me, but I do
not think she enjoys life as she did at home. It is hard to have her
whole mission reduced to airing those four horses. We have tormented
my uncle out of making us use more than two at a time, by begging for
six and the Lord Mayor's coach; but aired alternately they must be, and
we must do it, and by no road but what the coachman chooses; and this
does not seem to me to agree with her like trotting about the town on
her errands. There is no walking here, excepting in the
pleasure-ground, where all my grandfather's landscape-gardening has
been cut up so as to be a mere vexation to her. The people round are
said to be savage and disaffected, and the quarter of a mile between
the park and the village is subject to miners