not wonder at this, but I do wonder she should ever marry a man towards whom her feelings must always have been pretty much the same as they are now.  I am morally certain no decent woman could experience anything but aversion towards such a man as Mr. —–.  Before I knew, or suspected his character, and when I rather wondered at his versatile talents, I felt it in an uncontrollable degree.  I hated to talk with him—­hated to look at him; though as I was not certain that there was substantial reason for such a dislike, and thought it absurd to trust to mere instinct, I both concealed and repressed the feeling as much as I could; and, on all occasions, treated him with as much civility as I was mistress of.  I was struck with Mary’s expression of a similar feeling at first sight; she said, when we left him, ’That is a hideous man, Charlotte!’ I thought ‘He is indeed.’”

CHAPTER X

Early in March, 1841, Miss Bronte obtained her second and last situation as a governess.  This time she esteemed herself fortunate in becoming a member of a kind-hearted and friendly household.  The master of it, she especially regarded as a valuable friend, whose advice helped to guide her in one very important step of her life.  But as her definite acquirements were few, she had to eke them out by employing her leisure time in needlework; and altogether her position was that of “bonne” or nursery governess, liable to repeated and never-ending calls upon her time.  This description of uncertain, yet perpetual employment, subject to the exercise of another person’s will at all hours of the day, was peculiarly trying to one whose life at home had been full of abundant leisure. Idle she never was in any place, but of the multitude of small talks, plans, duties, pleasures, &c., that make up most people’s days, her home life was nearly destitute.  This made it possible for her to go through long and deep histories of feeling and imagination, for which others, odd as it sounds, have rarely time.  This made it inevitable that—­later on, in her too short career—­the intensity of her feeling should wear out her physical health.  The habit of “making out,” which had grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength, had become a part of her nature.  Yet all exercise of her strongest and most characteristic faculties was now out of the question.  She could not (as while she was at Miss W—–­’s) feel, amidst the occupations of the day, that when evening came, she might employ herself in more congenial ways.  No doubt, all who enter upon the career of a governess have to relinquish much; no doubt, it must ever be a life of sacrifice; but to Charlotte Bronte it was a perpetual attempt to force all her faculties into a direction for which the whole of her previous life had unfitted them.  Moreover, the little Brontes had been brought up motherless; and from knowing nothing of the gaiety and the sportiveness