The professor

Introduction

Ir is in April 1846 that we discover a first mention of ‘The Professor’ in a letter from Charlotte Bronté to Messrs. Aylott & Jones, the publishers of the little volume of ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell’ which made its modest appearance in that year. Miss Bronté consults Messrs. Aylott & Co. ‘on behalf of C., E. and A. Bell’ as to how they can best publish three tales already written by them—whether in three connected volumes or separately. The advice given was no doubt prudent and friendly,—but it did not help ‘ The Professor.’ The story went fruitlessly to many publishers. It returned to Charlotte, from one of its later quests, on the very morning of the day on which Mr. Bronté underwent an operation for cataract at Manchester—August 25, 1846. That evening, as we have seen, she began ‘Jane Eyre.’

After the great success of the first two books, she would have liked to publish ‘The Professor” But Mr. Smith and Mr. Williams dissuaded her; and to their dissuasion we owe ‘ Villette’; for if ‘The Professor’ had appeared in 1851, Miss Bronté could have made no such further use of her Brussels materials as she did actually put them to in ‘ Villette.’ The story was finally published after the writer’s death, and when the strong xiv THE PROFESSOR interest excited by Mrs. Gaskell’s Memoir led naturally to a demand for all that could yet be given to the public from the hand of Currer Bell.

There is little to add to the writer’s own animated preface. As she herself points out, the book is by no means the book of a novice. It was written in the author’s thirtieth year, after a long apprenticeship to the art of writing. Those innumerable tales, poems, and essays, composed in childhood and youth, of which Mrs. Gaskell and Mr. Shorter between them give accounts so suggestive and remarkable, were the natural and right foundation for all that followed. ‘The Professor’ shows already a method of composition almost mature, a pronounced manner, and the same power of analysis, within narrower limits, as the other books. What it lacks is colour and movement. Orimsworth as the lonely and struggling teacher, is inevitably less interesting—described, at any rate, by a woman— than Lucy Snowe under the same conditions, and in the same surroundings. His réle is not particularly manly; and he does not appeal to our pity. The intimate autobiographical note, which makes the spell of ‘ Villette,’ is absent; we miss the passionate moods and caprices, all the perennial charm of variable woman, which belongs to the later story. There are besides no vicissitudes in the plot. Crimsworth suffers nothing to speak of; he wins his Frances too easily; and the reader’s emotions are left unstirred. 7

Mademoiselle Reuter is Madame Beck over again, but at once less credible and less complex. Pelet is an extremely clever sketch. And Hunsworth ?

Hunsworth is really the critical element in the story.

INTRODUCTION XV

If he were other than he is, ‘The Professor’ would have stood higher in the scale. For the conception of him is both ambitious and original. But it breaks down. He puzzles us; and yet he is not mysterious. For that he is not human enough. In the end we find him merely brutal and repellent, and the letter to Crimsworth, which accompanies the gift of the picture, is one of those extravagances which destroy a reader’s sense of illusion. Great pains have been taken with him; and when he enters he promises much; but he is never truly living for a single page, and half way through the book he has already become a mere bundle of incredibilities. Let the reader put him beside Mr. Helstone of ‘Shirley,’ beside even Rochester, not to speak of Dr. John or Monsieur Paul, and so realise the difference between imagimation working at ease, in happy and vitalising strength, and the same faculty toiling unprofitably and half-heartedly with material which it can neither fuse nor master. There is pungency and power in much of Hunsworth’s talk; but it is not a pungency or power that can save him as a creation.

On the other hand Frances Henri, the little lace-mender, is a figure touched at every point with grace, feeling and truth. She is an exquisite sketch —a drawing in pale, pure colour, all delicate animation and soft life. She is only inferior to Caroline Helstone because the range of emotion and incident that her story requires is so much narrower than that which Caroline passes through. One feels her thrown away on ‘The Professor” An ampler stage and a warmer air should have been reserved for her; adventures more subtly invented; and a lover less easily victorious.

xvi THE PROFESSOR

But the scene in which she makes tea for Crimsworth— so at least one thinks as one reads it—could hardly be surpassed for fresh and tender charm; although when the same material is used again for the last scenes of ‘Villette, it is not hard to see how the flame and impetus of a great book may still heighten and deepen what was already excellent before.

‘The Professor’ indeed is grey and featureless compared with any of Charlotte Bronté’s other work. The final impression is that she was working under restraint when writing it, and that her proper gifts were consciously denied full play in it. In the preface of 1851, she says, as an explanation of the sobriety of the story —‘In many a crude effort destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely.’ In other words, she was putting herself under discipline in ‘The Professor’; trying to subdue the poetical impulse; to work as a realist and an observer only.

According to her own account of it, the publishers interfered with this process. They would not have ‘The Professor’; and they welcomed ‘Jane Eyre’ with alacrity. She was therefore thrown back, so to speak, upon her faults; obliged to work in ways more ‘ornamented’ and ‘redundant’; and thus the promise of realism in her was destroyed. The explanation is one of those which the artist will always supply himself with on occasion. In truth, the method of ‘The Professor’ represents a mere temporary reaction,—an experiment —in Charlotte Bronté’s literary development. When she returned to that exuberance of imagination and expres-.

INTRODUCTION Xvii sion which was her natural utterance, she was not merely writing to please her publishers and the public. Rather it was like Emily’s passionate return to the moorland—

Pll walk where my own nature would be leading, It vexes me to choose another guide:

The strong native bent reasserted itself, and with the happiest effects.

But because of what came after, and because the mental history of a great and delightful artist will always appeal to the affectionate curiosity of later generations, ‘The Professor’ will continue to be read both by those who love Charlotte Bronté, and by those who find pleasure in tracking the processes of literature. It needs no apology as a separate entity ; but from its relation to‘ Villette’ it gains an interest and importance the world would not otherwise have granted it. It is the first revelation of a genius which from each added throb of happiness or sorrow, from each short after-year of strenuous living,— per damna, per cedes—was to gain fresh wealth and steadily advancing power.

Mary A. Warp.

CONTE NES

THE PROFESSOR . < = A

EMMA. A FRAGMENT OF A STORY BY BRONTE. WITH INTRODUCTION BY W. M.

Pruatn’s WIirn’s DREAM. A 3 ‘ MEMENTOS . i ; és 5 a THE WIFE’S WILL . : 4 . 5 Tue Woop . : : ; 5 5 FRANCES . ; : . : “ 5 GILBERT A ; ° 4 . 4 Lirt F F < 5 é 4 6 THe LETTER é - ° : .

REGRET . ; : é A 4 5 PRESENTIMENT . ; 6 c .

Tur THACHER’S MONOLOGUE . . .

Passion 5 é > ‘i ° ‘ PREFERENCE . 5 : ° : 0 EVENING SOLACE 5 . . 4 Sranzas . : : : 5 ; *

WATCHING AND WISHING . ‘. A WHEN THOU SLEEPEST . : ‘ PaRTING ;

APOSTASY .

WINTER STORES .

CHARLOTTE THACKERAY viii THE PROFESSOR

POEMS BY CURRER BELL :—cont.

Tur MISSIONARY . A 5 A MeEmory ; : 5 c) 0 THE ORPHANS . ' . - 5

FaitH AND DESPONDENCY . e .

STARS : : : E A ‘ THE PHILOSOPHER : e .

REMEMBRANCE . ; ; . : Tae Outcast MoTHER a .

A DeatH-ScENE . 5 ; : Sone . j . < ; : ANTICIPATION . : : - 5 Tur Prisoner. A FRAGMENT .

Horr :

A Day Dream . < : To IMAGINATION . = = How cLEAR SHE SHINES . - SYMPATHY ‘ PLEAD FOR ME . C SELF-INTERROGATION A : ° DEATH.

STANZAS TO Honovur’s Martyr . - STANZAS

My Comrorter . ‘ THE OLD Srorc 4

A REMINISCENCE. .

Tue ARBOUR Home . ; ‘ < Vaniras VANITATUM, OMNIA VANITAS THE PENITENT

PAGE

369 374 375

410 411 412 413 414

CONTENTS ix

POEMS BY ACTON BELL :—cont.

PAGE

Music on CuristmAS MornNING . 2 : : » 415 STANZAS : A - 5 : é : : e416 If THIS BE ALL . 5 “ . ° ° a SS MeEmory . : : ' e e ° . - . 418

To CowPER . 6 ‘ c . ° ' : .- 420 Tur DousteEr’s PRAYER . 6 A - 5 - . 421 A Worpd To THE ‘ELECT’ . 5 ; < . . 423 Past Days . : ; é c 5 6 7 og CBS THE CONSOLATION , ; : a : 26 LINES COMPOSED IN A Woop on A Winpy Day bul ton LPH Views or Lire ' : 5 : A : 4 . 428 APPEAL ‘ 7 4 é 5 . : : . . 483 Tae STupDENT’s SERENADE . c 5 : r . 4384 THE Captive Dove . 5 5 c ; ; 6G Gis) SELF-CONGRATULATION . F : - . 4386 FLUCTUATIONS . . 5 5 é A 0 5 6 Hh

SELECTIONS FROM POEMS BY ELLIS BELL :—

INTRODUCTION . : ; 5 5 A 5 A . 443 STANZAS > F 4 ; 5 © < A « « 446 THE BLUEBELL f ‘ ° ° . 5 ; . 447 STANZAS : A 5 A . ° > « 448 GENIUS OF SOLITUDE : : A A ‘ F . 451 Ture NiaHt- WIND : - > : : : s « A4dD2 THe STORM . $ A 5 5 . é 453 Love AND FRIENDSHIP F 5 5 A 5 - . 454 Tue Evper’s REBUKE . 2 : 6 f ‘ . 454 Tur WANDERER FROM THE FOLD 5 5 4 « » 456 WARNING AND REPLY : A 3 : 3 < a 457 Last WorpDs : 9 ¢ 3 4 : : eects Tur Lapy TO HER GUITAR . 4 ° A 3 . 459 Tue Two CHILDREN . : é ; 5 : - . 459 THE VISIONARY ‘ : : ; 5 5 | - 462

ENCOURAGEMENT. A A 5 5 4 - « 462 x THE PROFESSOR

SELECTIONS FROM POEMS BY ELLIS BELL :—cont.

STANZAS Last LInrEs

SELECTIONS FROM POEMS BY ACTON BELL :—

INTRODUCTION DESPONDENCY .

A PRAYER . = A

In Memory or A Happy Day IN FEBRUARY .

CONFIDENCE A

Ture Narrow Way . : Domestic PEACE é S A - Tue THREE GUIDES

Last MEMENTO .

COTTAGE POEMS. BY THE REV. PATRICK BRONTE, B.A.:

EPIstLE To THE REv. J—— B—— Tur Happy CoTTaGERs

VERSES SENT TO A LADY ON HER BIRTHDAY.

Tuer IrRisH CABIN

To THE Rev. J. GIupin .

Tue CoTtacr Marp

THE SPIDER AND THE F'Ly EPISTLE TO A YoUNG CLERGYMAN

EPISTLE TO THE LABOURING Poor.

THE CoTTAGER’s Hymn

Inpex to First Lines oF THE Porms.

PAGE

Tuts little book was written before either ‘Jane Eyre’ or ‘Shirley,’ and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt. A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had not indeed published anything before I commenced ‘The Professor,’ but in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely. At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an author more surprise than pleasure.

I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs— that he should never get a shilling he had not earned— that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain, should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the ascent of ‘the Hill of Difficulty’; that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam’sson he should share Adam’s doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.

In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general a THE PROFESSOR scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative and poetical—something more consonant with a highly-wrought fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly. Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind, he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such treasures. Men in business are usually thought to prefer the real; on trial the idea will be often found fallacious : a passionate preference for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling—the strange, startling, and harrowing—agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.

Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone through some struggles—which indeed it has. And after all, its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come; but it takes comfort—subdues fear—leans on the staff of a moderate expectation—and mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public,

He that is low need fear no fall.

CURRER BELL.

The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the publication of ‘The Professor,’ shortly after the appearance of ‘Shirley.’ Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some use of the materials in a subsequent work—‘ Villette.” As, however, these two stories are in most respects alike, it has been represented to me that I ought not to withhold ‘The Professor’ from the public. Ihave therefore consented to its publication.

A. B. NICHOLLS.

Hawortu PARSONAGE,

September 22nd, 1856.

Chapter I Introductory

Tue other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance :—

‘Dear CHARLES,—

‘I rank, when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of us what could be called popular characters : you were a sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature ; my own portrait I will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly attractive one—can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the Pylades and Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me. Still, out of school-hours we walked and talked continually together; when the theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we understood each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself superior to that check then as I do now.

‘It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.

‘First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles, Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe, which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe, hinted that when I became rector of Seacombecum-Scaife, I might perhaps be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.

‘T declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife—oh, how like a nightmare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fireside of Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them—for instance, the large and well-modelled statue, Sarah—no; I should be a bad husband, under such circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.

‘When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me “what I intended to do?” TI said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale demanded sternly, ‘‘ Whether I had thoughts of following my father’s steps and engaging in trade?” Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced the word trade—such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone—that I was instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered then, with haste and warmth, “I cannot do better than follow in my father’s steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.” My uncles did not remonstrate ; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the reception of another burden—one which might be more intolerable, and which certainly was yet untried.

‘I wrote instantly to Edward—you know Edward—my only brother, ten years my senior, married to a rich millowner’s daughter, and now possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he failed. You are aware that my father—once reckoned a Croesus of wealth— became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth, the shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for her.

‘My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances against Mr. Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race; they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X ; and, making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during which space of time Edward and T never met. He, when he grew up, entered into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune. Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded without some expression of determined enmity against the house of Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against my father—of the sufferings of my mother—of all the wrongs, in short, of our house—then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe, and the union with one of my patrician cousins.

‘An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself, I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my conduct, but he said I might come down to shire, if I liked, and he would “see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.” I repressed all—even mental comment on his note—packed my trunk and carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.

‘After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence), I arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X Thad always understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that it was only Mr. Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated in the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his residence lay four miles out, in the country.

‘It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the habitation designated to meas my brother’s. As I advanced up the avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.

‘«“ Hidward is rich,” thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing well—but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.” Cutting short all marvelling, speculation, conjecture, &c., I advanced .to the front door and rang. A man-servant opened it—I announced myself—he relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet returned from X—— market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of half an hour.

‘Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain—I was in no danger of encountering severe disappointment ; from this, the moderation of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of fraternal tenderness; HEdward’s letters had always been such as to prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still, as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager—very eager—I cannot tell you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand, clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain have shaken it.

‘I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived ; and after the lapse of some minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the hall, his tread drew near the library door—that tread alone announced the master of the house.

‘T still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten years ago—a tall, wiry, raw youth; now, as I rose from my seat and turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man, light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown as well in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment of shaking hands, scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the morocco-covered arm-chair, and motioned me to another seat.

‘“T expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,” said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the South.

‘“The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,” said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being aware that you had such a residence as this.”

‘Oh, it is all right!” he replied, “only I was kept half an hour behind time, waiting for you—that is all. I thought you must be coming by the eight-o’clock coach.”

‘T expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience ; then he scanned me again.

‘T felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm ; that I had saluted this man with a quiet and steady phlegm.

‘“ Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?” he asked hastily.

‘“T do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against all future intercourse.”

‘“ Why,” said he, “I may as well remind you at the very outset of our connection, that ‘no man can serve two masters.’ Acquaintance with Lord Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.” There was a kind of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this observation.

‘Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an inward speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution of men’s minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Crimsworth drew from my silence—whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity, or an evidence of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and hard stare at me, he rose sharply from his seat.

‘«“To-morrow,” said he, ‘I shall call your attention to some other points; but now it is supper-time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is probably waiting : will you come?”

‘He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I wondered what Mrs. Crimsworth might be. ‘“Is she,” thought I, “as alien to what I like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe—as the affectionate relative now striding before me? or is she better than these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel free to show something of my real nature ; or ” Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance into the dining-room.

‘A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the fireplace, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady; she was young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and fashionable: so much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay salutation passed between her and Mr. Crimsworth; she chid him, half playfully, half poutingly, for being late; her voice (i always take voices into the account in judging of character) was lively—it indicated, I thought, good animal spirits. Mr. Crimsworth soon checked her animated scolding with a kiss—a kiss that still told of the bridegroom (they had not yet been married a year); she took her seat at the suppertable in first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged my pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me, as ladies do when a flow of good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintance. It was now further obvious to me that she had a good complexion, and features sufficiently marked but agreeable ; her hair was red—quite red. She and Edward talked much, always in a vein of playful contention; she was vexed, or pretended to be vexed, that he had that day driven a vicious horse in the gig, and he made light of her fears. Sometimes she appealed to me.