; and, at my request, she permitted
them to accompany us a little way through the forest, upon their
promising to sit very still, and hold fast.

We were hardly seated, and the ladies had scarcely exchanged
compliments, making the usual remarks upon each other's dress, and upon
the company they expected to meet, when Charlotte stopped the carriage,
and made her brothers get down. They insisted upon kissing her hands
once more; which the eldest did with all the tenderness of a youth
of fifteen, but the other in a lighter and more careless manner. She
desired them again to give her love to the children, and we drove off.

The aunt inquired of Charlotte whether she had finished the book she had
last sent her. "No," said Charlotte; "I did not like it: you can have
it again. And the one before was not much better." I was surprised, upon
asking the title, to hear that it was ____. (We feel obliged to suppress
the passage in the letter, to prevent any one from feeling aggrieved;
although no author need pay much attention to the opinion of a mere
girl, or that of an unsteady young man.)

I found penetration and character in everything she said: every
expression seemed to brighten her features with new charms,--with
new rays of genius,--which unfolded by degrees, as she felt herself
understood.

"When I was younger," she observed, "I loved nothing so much as
romances. Nothing could equal my delight when, on some holiday, I could
settle down quietly in a corner, and enter with my whole heart and soul
into the joys or sorrows of some fictitious Leonora. I do not deny that
they even possess some charms for me yet. But I read so seldom, that I
prefer books suited exactly to my taste. And I like those authors best
whose scenes describe my own situation in life,--and the friends who are
about me, whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own
homely existence,--which, without being absolutely paradise, is, on the
whole, a source of indescribable happiness."

I endeavoured to conceal the emotion which these words occasioned, but
it was of slight avail; for, when she had expressed so truly her opinion
of "The Vicar of Wakefield," and of other works, the names of which I
omit (Though the names are omitted, yet the authors mentioned deserve
Charlotte's approbation, and will feel it in their hearts when they read
this passage. It concerns no other person.), I could no longer contain
myself, but gave full utterance to wha