Neither Charlotte nor her sisters were naturally fond of children. The hieroglyphics of childhood were an unknown language to them, for they had never been much with those younger than themselves. I am inclined to think, too, that they had not the happy knack of imparting information, which seems to be a separate gift from the faculty of acquiring it.... The little Brontës had been brought up motherless; and from knowing nothing of the gaiety and sportiveness of childhood--from never having experienced caresses or fond attentions themselves--they were ignorant of the very nature of infancy, or how to call out its engaging qualities. Children were to them the troublesome necessities of humanity; they had never been drawn into contact with them in any other way. Years afterward, when Miss Brontë came to stay with us, she watched our little girls perpetually; and I could not persuade her that they were only average specimens of well brought up children. She was surprised and touched by any sign of thoughtfulness for others, of kindness to animals, or of unselfishness on their part; and constantly maintained that she was in the right, and I in the wrong, when we differed on the point of their unusual excellence. My youngest little girl ... would steal her little hand into Miss Brontë’s scarcely larger one, and each took pleasure in this apparently unobserved caress. Yet once when I told Julia to take and show her the way to some room in the house, Miss Brontë shrank back: “Do not _bid_ her do anything for me,” she said; “it has been so sweet hitherto to have her rendering her little attentions _spontaneously_.” As illustrating her feelings with regard to children, I may give what she says in [one] of her letters to me: “Whenever I see Florence and Julia again, I shall feel like a fond but bashful suitor, who views at a distance the fair personage to whom, in his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest idea I can give you of my feeling towards children I like, but to whom I am a stranger--and to what children am I not a stranger? They seem to me little wonders; their talk, their ways, are all matter of half-admiring, half-puzzled speculation.” MRS. GASKELL: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Manner of composing.]