me I told her she was very ugly. Some
years afterwards, I told her I thought I had been very impertinent. She
replied, 'You did me a great deal of good, Polly, so don't repent of it.'
She used to draw much better, and more quickly, than anything we had seen
before, and knew much about celebrated pictures and painters. Whenever
an opportunity offered of examining a picture or cut of any kind, she
went over it piecemeal, with her eyes close to the paper, looking so long
that we used to ask her 'what she saw in it.' She could always see
plenty, and explained it very well. She made poetry and drawing at least
exceedingly interesting to me; and then I got the habit, which I have
yet, of referring mentally to her opinion on all matters of that kind,
along with many more, resolving to describe such and such things to her,
until I start at the recollection that I never shall."

To feel the full force of this last sentence--to show how steady and
vivid was the impression which Miss Bronte made on those fitted to
appreciate her--I must mention that the writer of this letter, dated
January 18th, 1856, in which she thus speaks of constantly referring to
Charlotte's opinion has never seen her for eleven years, nearly all of
which have been passed among strange scenes, in a new continent, at the
antipodes.

"We used to be furious politicians, as one could hardly help being in
1832. She knew the names of the two ministries; the one that resigned,
and the one that succeeded and passed the Reform Bill. She worshipped
the Duke of Wellington, but said that Sir Robert Peel was not to be
trusted; he did not act from principle like the rest, but from
expediency. I, being of the furious radical party, told her 'how could
any of them trust one another; they were all of them rascals!' Then she
would launch out into praises of the Duke of Wellington, referring to his
actions; which I could not contradict, as I knew nothing about him. She
said she had taken interest in politics ever since she was five years
old. She did not get her opinions from her father--that is, not
directly--but from the papers, &c., he preferred."

In illustration of the truth of this, I may give an extract from a letter
to her brother, written from Roe Head, May 17th, 1832:--"Lately I had
begun to think that I had lost all the interest which I used formerly to
take in politics; but the extreme pleasure I felt at the news of the
Reform Bill's being thrown out b