" (who is shadowed forth in the
Caroline Helstone of "Shirley") managed to win confidence, and was
allowed to give sympathy.
To quote again from "Mary's" letter:--
"We thought her very ignorant, for she had never learnt grammar at all,
and very little geography."
This account of her partial ignorance is confirmed by her other school-
fellows. But Miss W--- was a lady of remarkable intelligence and of
delicate tender sympathy. She gave a proof of this in her first
treatment of Charlotte. The little girl was well-read, but not
well-grounded. Miss W--- took her aside and told her she was afraid that
she must place her in the second class for some time till she could
overtake the girls of her own age in the knowledge of grammar, &c.; but
poor Charlotte received this announcement with so sad a fit of crying,
that Miss W---'s kind heart was softened, and she wisely perceived that,
with such a girl, it would be better to place her in the first class, and
allow her to make up by private study in those branches where she was
deficient.
"She would confound us by knowing things that were out of our range
altogether. She was acquainted with most of the short pieces of poetry
that we had to learn by heart; would tell us the authors, the poems they
were taken from, and sometimes repeat a page or two, and tell us the
plot.
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