“I first saw her coming out of a covered cart, in very old-fashioned clothes, and looking very cold and miserable.  She was coming to school at Miss W—–­’s.  When she appeared in the schoolroom, her dress was changed, but just as old.  She looked a little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her head from side to side to catch a sight of it.  She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent.  When a book was given her, she dropped her head over it till her nose nearly touched it, and when she was told to hold her head up, up went the book after it, still close to her nose, so that it was not possible to help laughing.”

This was the first impression she made upon one of those whose dear and valued friend she was to become in after-life.  Another of the girls recalls her first sight of Charlotte, on the day she came, standing by the schoolroom window, looking out on the snowy landscape, and crying, while all the rest were at play.  “E.” was younger than she, and her tender heart was touched by the apparently desolate condition in which she found the oddly-dressed, odd-looking little girl that winter morning, as “sick for home she stood in tears,” in a new strange place, among new strange people.  Any over-demonstrative kindness would have scared the wild little maiden from Haworth; but “E.” (who is shadowed forth in the Caroline Helstone of “Shirley”) managed to win confidence, and was allowed to give sympathy.

To quote again from “Mary’s” letter:—­

“We thought her very ignorant, for she had never learnt grammar at all, and very little geography.”

This account of her partial ignorance is confirmed by her other school-fellows.  But Miss W—–­ was a lady of remarkable intelligence and of delicate tender sympathy.  She gave a proof of this in her first treatment of Charlotte.  The little girl was well-read, but not well-grounded.  Miss W—–­ took her aside and told her she was afraid that she must place her in the second class for some time till she could overtake the girls of her own age in the knowledge of grammar, &c.; but poor Charlotte received this announcement with so sad a fit of crying, that Miss W—–­’s kind heart was softened, and she wisely perceived that, with such a girl, it would be better to place her in the first class, and allow her to make up by private study in those branches where she was deficient.

“She would confound us by knowing things that were out of our range altogether.  She was acquainted with most of the short pieces of poetry that we had to learn by heart; would tell us the authors, the poems they were taken from, and sometimes repeat a page or two, and tell us the plot.  She had a habit of writing in italics (printing characters), and said she had learnt it by writing in their magazine.  They brought out a ‘magazine’ once a month, and wished it to look as like print as possible.