much--and you also. I fear from the circumstance of your being at
Harrogate that you are yourself ill. Write to me soon.'

It was in September that the incident occurred which has found so
dramatic a setting in _Villette_--the confession to a priest of the Roman
Catholic Church of a daughter of the most militant type of Protestantism;
and not the least valuable of my newly-discovered Bronte treasures is the
letter which Charlotte wrote to Emily giving an unembellished account of
the incident.

TO MISS EMILY J. BRONTE

'BRUSSELS, _September_ 2_nd_, 1843.

'DEAR E. J.,--Another opportunity of writing to you coming to pass, I
shall improve it by scribbling a few lines. More than half the
holidays are now past, and rather better than I expected. The
weather has been exceedingly fine during the last fortnight, and yet
not so Asiatically hot as it was last year at this time.
Consequently I have tramped about a great deal and tried to get a
clearer acquaintance with the streets of Bruxelles. This week, as no
teacher is here except Mdlle. Blanche, who is returned from Paris, I
am always alone except at meal-times, for Mdlle. Blanche's character
is so false and so contemptible I can't force myself to associate
with her. She perceives my utter dislike and never now speaks to
me--a great relief.

'However, I should inevitably fall into the gulf of low spirits if I
stayed always by myself here without a human being to speak to, so I
go out and traverse the Boulevards and streets of Bruxelles sometimes
for hours together. Yesterday I went on a pilgrimage to the
cemetery, and far beyond it on to a hill where there was nothing but
fields as far as the horizon. When I came back it was evening; but I
had such a repugnance to return to the house, which contained nothing
that I cared for, I still kept threading the streets in the
neighbourhood of the Rue d'Isabelle and avoiding it. I found myself
opposite to Ste. Gudule, and the bell, whose voice you know, began to
toll for evening salut. I went in, quite alone (which procedure you
will say is not much like me), wandered about the aisles where a few
old women were saying their prayers, till vespers begun. I stayed
till they were over. Still I could not leave the church or force
myself to go home--t