short-sighted as she was; and, besides, it enabled her to use
pencil and paper, as she sat near the fire in the twilight hours,
or if (as was too often the case) she was wakeful for hours in
the night. Her finished manuscripts were copied from these pencil
scraps, in clear, legible, delicate traced writing, almost as
easy to read as print.

The sisters retained the old habit, which was begun in their
aunt's life-time, of putting away their work at nine o'clock, and
beginning their study, pacing up and down the sitting room. At
this time, they talked over the stories they were engaged upon,
and described their plots. Once or twice a week, each read to the
others what she had written, and heard what they had to say about
it. Charlotte told me, that the remarks made had seldom any
effect in inducing her to alter her work, so possessed was she
with the feeling that she had described reality; but the readings
were of great and stirring interest to all, taking them out of
the gnawing pressure of daily-recurring cares, and setting them
in a free place. It was on one of these occasions, that Charlotte
determined to make her heroine plain, small, and unattractive, in
defiance of the accepted canon.

The writer of the beautiful obituary article on "the death of
Currer Bell" most likely learnt from herself what is there
stated, and which I will take the liberty of quoting, about Jane
Eyre.

"She once told her sisters that they were wrong--even morally
wrong--in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course.
They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting