forgotten, and never said.' Charlotte began to fear some time must elapse before her plans could be executed, and she resolved not to relinquish her situation till something was assured. But this expectation of keeping a school, cherished through long years, was never realized by the sisters; ever and anon the shifting sands of circumstance, the changing currents of life, moved them away, even while they believed themselves approaching the goal of their hopes. Charlotte returned to her situation, and she tells her friend, in a letter dated August the 7th, 1841, that she 'felt herself' again. Mr. and Mrs. ---- were from home, and she takes the opportunity of saying that to be solitary there was to her the happiest part of her time. She enters into particulars of the household: the children were under decent control, and the servants were observant and attentive to her; she says of herself, moreover, that the absence of the master and mistress relieved her from the duty of always putting on the appearance of being cheerful and conversable. Her friends, Martha and Mary T----, were enjoying great advantages on the Continent, where they had gone to stay a month with their brother. Charlotte had had a long letter from Mary, and a packet enclosing a handsome black silk scarf, and a pair of beautiful kid gloves bought in Brussels as a present. She was pleased with them, and that she had been remembered so far off, amidst the excitement of 'one of the most splendid capitals of Europe.' Mary's letters spoke of 'some of the pictures and cathedrals she had seen--pictures the most exquisite, cathedrals the most venerable.' Something swelled to the throat of Charlotte as she read this account. She was seized with a 'vehement impatience of restraint and steady work; such a strong wish for wings--wings such as wealth can furnish; such an urgent thirst to see, to know, to learn; something internal seemed to expand bodily for a minute.' She was tantalized for a time by the consciousness of faculties unexercised; then all collapsed. She considered these emotions, momentary as they were, rebellious and absurd, and they were speedily quelled by the resolute spirit they had disturbed. She hoped they would not revive, as they had been acutely painful. The school project, instead of at all fading, was gaining strength, and the three sisters kept it in view as the pole-star round which all their other schemes, as of lesser importance, revolved. To this they looked in their despondency. Charlotte was haunted, sometimes, and dismayed, at the conviction that she had no natural knack for her occupation. She says that, if teaching only were requisite, all would be smooth and easy; and she adds, 'but it is the living in other people's houses--the estrangement from one's real character--the adoption of a cold, rigid, apathetic exterior, that is painful.'