In the September of this year, Charlotte went to pay her first visit to her friend “E.”  It took her into the neighbourhood of Roe Head, and brought her into pleasant contact with many of her old school-fellows.  After this visit she and her friend seem to have agreed to correspond in French, for the sake of improvement in the language.  But this improvement could not be great, when it could only amount to a greater familiarity with dictionary words, and when there was no one to explain to them that a verbal translation of English idioms hardly constituted French composition; but the effort was laudable, and of itself shows how willing they both were to carry on the education which they had begun under Miss W-.  I will give an extract which, whatever may be thought of the language, is graphic enough, and presents us with a happy little family picture; the eldest sister returning home to the two younger, after a fortnight’s absence.

“J’arrivait a Haworth en parfaite sauvete sans le moindre accident ou malheur.  Mes petites soeurs couraient hors de la maison pour me rencontrer aussitot que la voiture se fit voir, et elles m’embrassaient avec autant d’empressement et de plaisir comme si j’avais ete absente pour plus d’an.  Mon Papa, ma Tante, et le monsieur dent men frere avoit parle, furent tous assembles dans le Salon, et en peu de temps je m’y rendis aussi.  C’est souvent l’ordre du Ciel que quand on a perdu un plaisir il y en a un autre pret a prendre sa place.  Ainsi je venois de partir de tres-chers amis, mais tout a l’heure je revins a des parens aussi chers et bon dans le moment.  Meme que vous me perdiez (ose-je croire que mon depart vous etait un chagrin?) vous attendites l’arrivee de votre frere, et de votre soeur.  J’ai donne a mes soeurs les pommes que vous leur envoyiez avec tant de bonte; elles disent qu’elles sont sur que Mademoiselle E. est tres-aimable et bonne; l’une et l’autre sont extremement impatientes de vous voir; j’espere qu’en peu de mois elles auront ce plaisir.”

But it was some time yet before the friends could meet, and meanwhile they agreed to correspond once a month.  There were no events to chronicle in the Haworth letters.  Quiet days, occupied in reaching, and feminine occupations in the house, did not present much to write about; and Charlotte was naturally driven to criticise books.

Of these there were many in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places.  The well-bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte’s study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, but as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been hungrily read by all the members of the family, was sometimes in such a condition that the bedroom shelf was considered its fitting place.  Up and down the house were to be found many standard works of a solid kind.  Sir Walter Scott’s writings, Wordsworth’s