They were Protestant to the backbone in other things
beside their religion, but pre-eminently so in that. Touched as
Charlotte was by the letter of St. Ignatius before alluded to, she
claimed equal self-devotion, and from as high a motive, for some of the
missionaries of the English Church sent out to toil and to perish on the
poisonous African coast, and wrote as an "imitation," "Lettre d'un
Missionnaire, Sierra Leone, Afrique."
Something of her feeling, too, appears in the following letter:--
"Brussels, 1842.
"I consider it doubtful whether I shall come home in September or not.
Madame Heger has made a proposal for both me and Emily to stay another
half-year, offering to dismiss her English master, and take me as
English teacher; also to employ Emily some part of each day in
teaching music to a certain number of the pupils. For these services
we are to be allowed to continue our studies in French and German, and
to have board, &c., without paying for it; no salaries, however, are
offered. The proposal is kind, and in a great selfish city like
Brussels, and a great selfish school, containing nearly ninety pupils
(boarders and day pupils included), implies a degree of interest which
demands gratitude in return. I am inclined to accept it. What think
you? I don't deny I sometimes wish to be in England, or that I have
brief attacks of home sickness; but, on the whole, I have borne a very
valiant heart so far; and I have been happy in Brussels, because I
have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like.
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