the freedom of life in her own family, were needed, to save either reason or life.  So, as One higher than she had over-ruled that for a time she might relax her strain, she returned to Haworth; and after a season of utter quiet, her father sought for her the enlivening society of her two friends, Mary and Martha T. At the conclusion of the following letter, written to the then absent E., there is, I think, as pretty a glimpse of a merry group of young people as need be; and like all descriptions of doing, as distinct from thinking or feeling, in letters, it saddens one in proportion to the vivacity of the picture of what was once, and is now utterly swept away.

   “Haworth, June 9, 1838.

“I received your packet of despatches on Wednesday; it was brought me by Mary and Martha, who have been staying at Haworth for a few days; they leave us to-day.  You will be surprised at the date of this letter.  I ought to be at Dewsbury Moor, you know; but I stayed as long as I was able, and at length I neither could nor dared stay any longer.  My health and spirits had utterly failed me, and the medical man whom I consulted enjoined me, as I valued my life, to go home.  So home I went, and the change has at once roused and soothed me; and I am now, I trust, fairly in the way to be myself again.

“A calm and even mind like yours cannot conceive the feelings of the shattered wretch who is now writing to you, when, after weeks of mental and bodily anguish not to be described, something like peace began to dawn again.  Mary is far from well.  She breathes short, has a pain in her chest, and frequent flushings of fever.  I cannot tell you what agony these symptoms give me; they remind me too strongly of my two sisters, 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.