ver seen such a clever little child"
(as Charlotte), "and that they were obliged to be on their guard as to
what they said and did before her. Yet she and the servants always lived
on good terms with each other."

These servants are yet alive; elderly women residing in Bradford. They
retain a faithful and fond recollection of Charlotte, and speak of her
unvarying kindness from the "time when she was ever such a little child!"
when she would not rest till she had got the old disused cradle sent from
the parsonage to the house where the parents of one of them lived, to
serve for a little infant sister. They tell of one long series of kind
and thoughtful actions from this early period to the last weeks of
Charlotte Bronte's life; and, though she had left her place many years
ago, one of these former servants went over from Bradford to Haworth on
purpose to see Mr. Bronte, and offer him her true sympathy, when his last
child died. I may add a little anecdote as a testimony to the admirable
character of the likeness of Miss Bronte prefixed to this volume. A
gentleman who had kindly interested himself in the preparation of this
memoir took the first volume, shortly after the publication, to the house
of this old servant, in order to show her the portrait. The moment she
caught a glimpse of the frontispiece, "There she is," in a minute she
exclaimed. "Come, John, look!" (to her husband); and her daughter was
equally struck by the resemblance. There might not be many to regard the
Brontes with affection, but those who once loved them, loved them long
and well.

I return to the father's letter. He says:--

"When mere children, as soon as they could read and write, Charlotte and
her brothers and sisters used to invent and act little plays of their
own, in which the Duke of Wellington, my daughter Charlotte's hero, was
sure to come off conqueror; when a dispute would not unfrequently arise
amongst them regarding the comparative merits of him, Buonaparte,
Hannibal, and Caesar. When the argument got warm, and rose to its
height, as their mother was then dead, I had sometimes to come in as
arbitrator, and settle the dispute according to the best of my judgment.
Generally, in the management of these concerns, I frequently thought that
I discovered signs of rising talent, which I had seldom or never before
seen in any of their age . . . A circumstance now occurs to my mind which
I may as well mention. When my children were