“April 15th, 1839.

“I could not write to you in the week you requested, as about that time we were very busy in preparing for Anne’s departure.  Poor child! she left us last Monday; no one went with her; it was her own wish that she might be allowed to go alone, as she thought she could manage better and summon more courage if thrown entirely upon her own resources.  We have had one letter from her since she went.  She expresses herself very well satisfied, and says that Mrs. —–­ is extremely kind; the two eldest children alone are under her care, the rest are confined to the nursery, with which and its occupants she has nothing to do . . .  I hope she’ll do.  You would be astonished what a sensible, clever letter she writes; it is only the talking part that I fear.  But I do seriously apprehend that Mrs. —–­ will sometimes conclude that she has a natural impediment in her speech.  For my own part, I am as yet ‘wanting a situation,’ like a housemaid out of place.  By the way, I have lately discovered I have quite a talent for cleaning, sweeping up hearths, dusting rooms, making beds, &c.; so, if everything else fails, I can turn my hand to that, if anybody will give me good wages for little labour.  I won’t be a cook; I hate soothing.  I won’t be a nurserymaid, nor a lady’s-maid, far less a lady’s companion, or a mantua-maker, or a straw-bonnet maker, or a taker-in of plain work.  I won’t be anything but a housemaid . . .  With regard to my visit to G., I have as yet received no invitation; but if I should be asked, though I should feel it a great act of self- denial to refuse, yet I have almost made up my mind to do so, though the society of the T.’s is one of the most rousing pleasures I have ever known.  Good-bye, my darling E., &c.

   “P.  S.—­Strike out that word ‘darling;’ it is humbug.  Where’s the use
   of protestations?  We’ve known each other, and liked each other, a
   good while; that’s enough.”

Not many weeks after this was written, Charlotte also became engaged as a governess.  I intend carefully to abstain from introducing the names of any living people, respecting whom I may have to tell unpleasant truths, or to quote severe remarks from Miss Bronte’s letters; but it is necessary that the difficulties she had to encounter in her various phases of life, should be fairly and frankly made known, before the force “of what was resisted” can be at all understood.  I was once speaking to her about “Agnes Grey”—­the novel in which her sister Anne pretty literally describes her own experience as a governess—­and alluding more particularly to the account of the stoning of the little nestlings in the presence of the parent birds.  She said that none but those who had been in the position of a governess could ever realise the dark side of “respectable” human nature; under no great temptation to crime, but daily giving way to selfishness and ill-temper, till its conduct towards