With all Charlotte’s gaiety and merriment, her delight in dancing and acting, and her love of games, there was a stern side, even in those early days, to her girlish nature; and in this respect she and Robert were well suited the one to the other. She was, as one says who knew her well, ‘a born heroine’; indeed, both she and Robert were of the stuff of which in former centuries martyrs have been made.