I will make a quotation
from "Mary's" letter referring to this time.
"The first part of her time at Brussels was not uninteresting. She spoke
of new people and characters, and foreign ways of the pupils and
teachers. She knew the hopes and prospects of the teachers, and
mentioned one who was very anxious to marry, 'she was getting so old.'
She used to get her father or brother (I forget which) to be the bearer
of letters to different single men, who she thought might be persuaded to
do her the favour, saying that her only resource was to become a sister
of charity if her present employment failed and that she hated the idea.
Charlotte naturally looked with curiosity to people of her own condition.
This woman almost frightened her. 'She declares there is nothing she can
turn to, and laughs at the idea of delicacy,--and she is only ten years
older than I am!' I did not see the connection till she said, 'Well,
Polly, I should hate being a sister of charity; I suppose that would
shock some people, but I should.' I thought she would have as much
feeling as a nurse as most people, and more than some. She said she did
not know how people could bear the constant pressure of misery, and never
to change except to a new form of it. It would be impossible to keep
one's natural feelings. I promised her a better destiny than to go
begging any one to marry her, or to lose her natural feelings as a sister
of charity.
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