hair,
and peculiar eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a description, as
they appeared to me in her later life. They were large and well shaped;
their colour a reddish brown; but if the iris was closely examined, it
appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints. The usual
expression was of quiet, listening intelligence; but now and then, on
some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome indignation, a light
would shine out, as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled, which glowed
behind those expressive orbs. I never saw the like in any other human
creature. As for the rest of her features, they were plain, large, and
ill set; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you were hardly aware
of the fact, for the eyes and power of the countenance over-balanced
every physical defect; the crooked mouth and the large nose were
forgotten, and the whole face arrested the attention, and presently
attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract. Her
hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw; when one of the former was
placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my
palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation,
which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind--writing,
sewing, knitting--was so clear in its minuteness. She was remarkably
neat in her whole personal attire; but she was dainty as to the fit of
her shoes and gloves.

I can well imagine that the grave serious composure, which, when I knew
her, gave her face the dignity of an old Venetian portrait, was no
acquisition of later years, but dated from that early age when she found
herself in the position of an elder sister to motherless children. But
in a girl only just entered on her teens, such an expression would be
called (to use a country phrase) "old-fashioned;" and in 1831, the period
of which I now write, we must think of her as a little, set, antiquated
girl, very quiet in manners, and very quaint in dress; for besides the
influence exerted by her father's ideas concerning the simplicity of
attire befitting the wife and daughters of a country clergyman, her aunt,
on whom the duty of dressing her nieces principally devolved, had never
been in society since she left Penzance, eight or nine years before, and
the Penzance fashions of that day were still dear to her heart.

In January, 1831, Charlotte was sent to school again. This time she went
as a pupil to Miss W-