I was once speaking to
her about "Agnes Grey"--the novel in which her sister Anne pretty
literally describes her own experience as a governess--and alluding more
particularly to the account of the stoning of the little nestlings in the
presence of the parent birds. She said that none but those who had been
in the position of a governess could ever realise the dark side of
"respectable" human nature; under no great temptation to crime, but daily
giving way to selfishness and ill-temper, till its conduct towards those
dependent on it sometimes amounts to a tyranny of which one would rather
be the victim than the inflicter. We can only trust in such cases that
the employers err rather from a density of perception and an absence of
sympathy, than from any natural cruelty of disposition. Among several
things of the same kind, which I well remember, she told me what had once
occurred to herself. She had been entrusted with the care of a little
boy, three or four years old, during the absence of his parents on a
day's excursion, and particularly enjoined to keep him out of the stable-
yard. His elder brother, a lad of eight or nine, and not a pupil of Miss
Bronte's, tempted the little fellow into the forbidden place. She
followed, and tried to induce him to come away; but, instigated by his
brother, he began throwing stones at her, and one of them hit her so
severe a blow on the temple that the lads were alarmed into obedience.
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