Mrs Strickland, [‘Charlotte and the White Family of Rawdon’] (1841), in Westminster Gazette (4 May 1901), p. 8

Abstract

My mother, Mrs Slade of Hastings, now in her seventy-ninth year, remembers meeting the afterwards distinguished authoress at the house of Mr White, a Bradford merchant, then residing at Acacia, Apperley Bridge, near Bradford, something like sixty-five years ago. At that time Miss Brontë was acting as governess to Mr White’s children, and my mother had a vivid recollection of seeing her sitting apart from the rest of the family, in a corner of the room, poring, in her short-sighted way, over a book. The impression she made on my mother was that of a shy nervous girl, ill at ease, who desired to escape notice and to avoid taking part in the general conversation. One can well believe that this was actually the case.