y of her sister, but was lively
in games that engaged her mind. Her music was very correct, but
entirely cultivated by practice and perseverance. Anything underhand
was detestable to both Mary and Martha; they had no mean pride
towards others, but accepted the incidents of life with imperturbable
good-sense and insight. They were not dressed as well as other
pupils, for economy at that time was the rule of their household.
The girls had to stitch all over their new gloves before wearing
them, by order of their mother, to make them wear longer. Their dark
blue cloth coats were worn when _too short_, and black beaver bonnets
quite plainly trimmed, with the ease and contentment of a fashionable
costume. Mr. Taylor was a banker as well as a monopolist of army
cloth manufacture in the district. He lost money, and gave up
banking. He set his mind on paying all creditors, and effected this
during his lifetime as far as possible, willing that his sons were to
do the remainder, which two of his sons carried out, as was
understood, during their lifetime--Mark and Martin of _Shirley_.'

Let us now read Charlotte's description in _Shirley_, and I think we have
a tolerably fair estimate of the sisters.

'The two next are girls, Rose and Jessie; they are both now at their
father's knee; they seldom go near their mother, except when obliged
to do so. Rose, the elder, is twelve years old; she is like her
father--the most like him of the whole group--but it is a granite
head copied in ivory; all is softened in colour and line. Yorke
himself has a harsh face; his daughter's is not harsh, neither is it
quite pretty; it is simple--childlike in feature; the round cheeks
bloom; as to the grey eyes, they are otherwise than childlike--a
serious soul lights them--a young soul yet, but it will mature, if
the body lives; and neither father nor mother has a spirit to compare
with it. Partaking of the essence of each, it will one day be better
than either--stronger, much purer, more aspiring. Rose is a still,
and sometimes a stubborn girl now; her mother wants to make of her
such a woman as she is herself--a woman of dark and dreary duties;
and Rose has a mind full-set, thick-sown with the germs of ideas her
mother never knew. It is agony to her often to have these ideas
trampled on and repressed. She has