Jane Eyre--the tiny little
lady. The moment is so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to
the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops
to offer his arm; for, though genius she may be, Miss Bronte can
barely reach his elbow. My own personal impressions are that she is
somewhat grave and stern, especially to forward little girls who wish
to chatter. Mr. George Smith has since told me how she afterwards
remarked upon my father's wonderful forbearance and gentleness with
our uncalled-for incursions into the conversation. She sat gazing at
him with kindling eyes of interest, lighting up with a sort of
illumination every now and then as she answered him. I can see her
bending forward over the table, not eating, but listening to what he
said as he carved the dish before him.

'I think it must have been on this very occasion that my father
invited some of his friends in the evening to meet Miss Bronte--for
everybody was interested and anxious to see her. Mrs. Crowe, the
reciter of ghost-stories, was there. Mrs. Brookfield, Mrs. Carlyle,
Mr. Carlyle himself was present, so I am told, railing at the
appearance of cockneys upon Scotch mountain sides; there were also
too many Americans for his taste, "but the Americans were as gods
compared to the cockneys," says the philosopher. Besides the
Carlyles, there were Mrs. Elliott and Miss Perry, Mrs. Procter and
her daughter, most of my father's habitual friends and companions.
In the recent life of Lord Houghton I was amused to see a note quoted
in which Lord Houghton also was convened. Would that he had been
present--perhaps the party would have gone off better. It was a
gloomy and a silent evening. Every one waited for the brilliant
conversation which never began at all. Miss Bronte retired to the
sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then to our kind
governess, Miss Truelock. The room looked very dark, the lamp began
to smoke a little, the conversation grew dimmer and more dim, the
ladies sat round still expectant, my father was too much perturbed by
the gloom and the silence to be able to cope with it at all. Mrs.
Brookfield, who was in the doorway by the study, near the corner in
which Miss Bronte was sitting, leant forward with a little
commonplace, since brilliance was not to be the order