This is perhaps a fitting time to give some personal description of Miss Brontë.  In 1831, she was a quiet, thoughtful girl, of nearly fifteen years of age, very small in figure—“stunted” was the word she applied¹ to herself,—but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied to her; with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar² eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a description, as they appeared to me in her later life.  They were large and well shaped; their colour a reddish brown; but if the iris³ was closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints⁴.  The usual expression was of quiet, listening intelligence; but now and then, on some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome⁵ indignation, a light would shine out, as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled⁶, which glowed behind those expressive⁷ orbs⁸.  I never saw the like in any other human creature.  As for the rest of her features, they were plain, large, and ill set; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you were hardly aware of the fact, for the eyes and power of the countenance⁹ over-balanced every physical defect; the crooked¹⁰ mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face arrested the attention, and presently attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract.  Her hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw; when one of the former was placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm.  The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation, which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind—writing, sewing, knitting—was so clear in its minuteness.  She was

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