a walk from Dewsbury Moor as it had been from Roe Head; and on Saturday afternoons both “Mary” and she used to call upon Charlotte, and often endeavoured to persuade her to return with them, and be the guest of one of them till Monday morning; but this was comparatively seldom.  Mary says:—­“She visited us twice or thrice when she was at Miss W—–­’s.  We used to dispute about politics and religion.  She, a Tory and clergyman’s daughter, was always in a minority of one in our house of violent Dissent and Radicalism.  She used to hear over again, delivered with authority, all the lectures I had been used to give her at school on despotic aristocracy, mercenary priesthood, &c.  She had not energy to defend herself; sometimes she owned to a little truth in it, but generally said nothing.  Her feeble health gave her her yielding manner, for she could never oppose any one without gathering up all her strength for the struggle.  Thus she would let me advise and patronise most imperiously, sometimes picking out any grain of sense there might be in what I said, but never allowing any one materially to interfere with her independence of thought and action.  Though her silence sometimes left one under the impression that she agreed when she did not, she never gave a flattering opinion, and thus her words were golden, whether for praise or blame.”

“Mary’s” father was a man of remarkable intelligence, but of strong, not to say violent prejudices, all running in favour of Republicanism and Dissent.  No other county but Yorkshire could have produced such a man.  His brother had been a detenu in France, and had afterwards voluntarily taken up his residence there.  Mr. T. himself had been much abroad, both on business and to see the great continental galleries of paintings.  He spoke French perfectly, I have been told, when need was; but delighted usually in talking the broadest Yorkshire.  He bought splendid engravings of the pictures which he particularly admired, and his house was full of works of art and of books; but he rather liked to present his rough side to any stranger or new-comer; he would speak his broadest, bring out his opinions on Church and State in their most startling forms, and, by and by, if he found his hearer could stand the shock, he would involuntarily show his warm kind heart, and his true taste, and real refinement.  His family of four sons and two daughters were brought up on Republican principles; independence of thought and action was encouraged; no “shams” tolerated.  They are scattered far and wide:  Martha, the younger daughter, sleeps in the Protestant cemetery at Brussels; Mary is in New Zealand; Mr. T. is dead.  And so life and death have dispersed the circle of “violent Radicals and Dissenters” into which, twenty years ago, the little, quiet, resolute clergyman’s daughter was received, and by whom she was truly loved and honoured.

January and February of 1837 had passed away, and still there was no reply from Southey.  Probably she had lost expectation and almost hope when at length, in the beginning of March, she received the letter inserted in Mr. C. C. Southey’s life of his Father, vol. iv. p. 327.