isters, whom no power of medicine could save. Martha is now
very well; she has kept in a continual flow of good humour during her
stay here, and has consequently been very fascinating . . . "

"They are making such a noise about me I cannot write any more. Mary
is playing on the piano; Martha is chattering as fast as her little
tongue can run; and Branwell is standing before her, laughing at her
vivacity."

Charlotte grew much stronger in this quiet, happy period at home. She
paid occasional visits to her two great friends, and they in return came
to Haworth. At one of their houses, I suspect, she met with the person
to whom the following letter refers--some one having a slight resemblance
to the character of "St. John," in the last volume of "Jane Eyre," and,
like him, in holy orders.

"March 12, 1839.

. . . "I had a kindly leaning towards him, because he is an amiable
and well-disposed man. Yet I had not, and could not have, that
intense attachment which would make me willing to die for him; and if
ever I marry, it must be in that light of adoration that I will regard
my husband. Ten to one I shall never have the chance again; but
_n'importe_. Moreover, I was aware that he knew so little of me he
could hardly be conscious to whom he was writing. Why! it would
startle him to see me in my natural home character; he would think I
was a wild, romantic enthusiast indeed. I could not sit all day long
making a grave face before my husband. I would laugh, and satirize,
and say whatever came into my head first. And if he were a clever
man, and loved me, the whole world, weighed in the balance against his
smallest wish, should be light as air."

So that--her first proposal of marriage--was quietly declined and put on
one side. Matrimony did not enter into the scheme of her life, but good,
sound, earnest labour did; the question, however, was as yet undecided in
what direction she should employ her forces. She had been discouraged in
literature; her eyes failed her in the minute kind of drawing which she
practised when she wanted to express an idea; teaching seemed to her at
this time, as it does to most women at all times, the only way of earning
an independent livelihood. But neither she nor her sisters were
naturally fond of children. The hieroglyphics of childhood were an
unknown language to them, for they had never been much with those younger