to enjoy simple pleasures, and fortitude to support inevitably pains, sympathy with the sufferings of others, and willingness to relieve want as far as her means extend.”

During the time that the negotiation with Messrs. Aylott and Co. was going on, Charlotte went to visit her old school-friend, with whom she was in such habits of confidential intimacy; but neither then nor afterwards, did she ever speak to her of the publication of the poems; nevertheless, this young lady suspected that the sisters wrote for Magazines; and in this idea she was confirmed when, on one of her visits to Haworth, she saw Anne with a number of “Chambers’s Journal,” and a gentle smile of pleasure stealing over her placid face as she read.

“What is the matter?” asked the friend.  “Why do you smile?”

“Only because I see they have inserted one of my poems,” was the quiet reply; and not a word more was said on the subject.

To this friend Charlotte addressed the following letters:—­

   “March 3rd, 1846.

“I reached home a little after two o’clock, all safe and right yesterday; I found papa very well; his sight much the same.  Emily and Anne were going to Keighley to meet me; unfortunately, I had returned by the old road, while they were gone by the new, and we missed each other.  They did not get home till half-past four, and were caught in the heavy shower of rain which fell in the afternoon.  I am sorry to say Anne has taken a little cold in consequence, but I hope she will soon be well.  Papa was much cheered by my report of Mr. C.’s opinion, and of old Mrs. E.’s experience; but I could perceive he caught gladly at the idea of deferring the operation a few months longer.  I went into the room where Branwell was, to speak to him, about an hour after I got home:  it was very forced work to address him.  I might have spared myself the trouble, as he took no notice, and made no reply; he was stupified.  My fears were not in vain.  I hear that he got a sovereign while I have been away, under pretence of paying a pressing debt; he went immediately and changed it at a public-house, and has employed it as was to be expected. —–­ concluded her account by saying he was a ‘hopeless being;’ it is too true.  In his present state it is scarcely possible to stay in the room where he is.  What the future has in store I do not know.”

   “March 31st, 1846.

“Our poor old servant Tabby had a sort of fit, a fortnight since, but is nearly recovered now.  Martha” (the girl they had to assist poor old Tabby, and who remains still the faithful servant at the parsonage,) “is ill with a swelling in her knee, and obliged to go home.  I fear it will be long before she is in working condition again.  I received the number of the ‘Record’ you sent . . .  I read D’Aubigne’s letter.  It is clever, and in what he says about Catholicism very good.  The Evangelical Alliance part is not