Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb01gaskrich).pdf/133

 was in reality only too willing to pass over her good pupil's first fault, withdrew the bad mark, and the girls all returned to their allegiance except "Mary," who took her own way during the week or two that remained of the half-year, choosing to consider Miss Wooler's injustice, in giving Charlotte Brontë a longer task than she could possibly prepare, as a reason for no longer obeying any of the school regulations.

The number of pupils was so small that the attendance to certain subjects at particular hours, common in larger schools, was not rigidly enforced. When the girls were ready with their lessons, they came to Miss Wooler to say them. She had a remarkable knack of making them feel interested in whatever they had to learn. They set to their studies, not as to tasks or duties to be got through, but with a healthy desire and thirst for knowledge, of which she had managed to make them perceive the relishing savour. They did not leave off reading and learning as soon as the compulsory pressure of school was taken away. They had been taught to think, to analyze, to reject, to appreciate. Charlotte Brontë was happy in the choice made for her of the second school to which she was sent. There was a robust freedom in the out-of-doors life of her companions. They played at merry games in the fields round the house: on Saturday half-holidays they went long scrambling walks down mysterious shady lanes, then climbing the uplands, and thus gaining extensive views over the country, about which so much had to be told, both of its past and present history.