She had another weight on her mind this Christmas.  I have said that the air of Dewsbury Moor did not agree with her, though she herself was hardly aware how much her life there was affecting her health.  But Anne had begun to suffer just before the holidays, and Charlotte watched over her younger sisters with the jealous vigilance of some wild creature, that changes her very nature if danger threatens her young.  Anne had a slight cough, a pain at her side, a difficulty of breathing.  Miss W—–­ considered it as little more than a common cold; but Charlotte felt every indication of incipient consumption as a stab at her heart, remembering Maria and Elizabeth, whose places once knew them, and should know them no more.

Stung by anxiety for this little sister, she upbraided Miss W—–­ for her fancied indifference to Anne’s state of health.  Miss W—–­ felt these reproaches keenly, and wrote to Mr. Bronte about them.  He immediately replied most kindly, expressing his fear that Charlotte’s apprehensions and anxieties respecting her sister had led her to give utterance to over-excited expressions of alarm.  Through Miss W—–­’s kind consideration, Anne was a year longer at school than her friends intended.  At the close of the half-year Miss W—–­ sought for the opportunity of an explanation of each other’s words, and the issue proved that “the falling out of faithful friends, renewing is of love.”  And so ended the first, last, and only difference Charlotte ever had with good, kind Miss W —–.

Still her heart had received a shock in the perception of Anne’s delicacy; and all these holidays she watched over her with the longing, fond anxiety, which is so full of sudden pangs of fear.

Emily had given up her situation in the Halifax school, at the expiration of six months of arduous trial, on account of her health, which could only be re-established by the bracing moorland air and free life of home.  Tabby’s illness had preyed on the family resources.  I doubt whether Branwell was maintaining himself at this time.  For some unexplained reason, he had given up the idea of becoming a student of painting at the Royal Academy, and his prospects in life were uncertain, and had yet to be settled.  So Charlotte had quietly to take up her burden of teaching again, and return to her previous monotonous life.

Brave heart, ready to die in harness!  She went back to her work, and made no complaint, hoping to subdue the weakness that was gaining ground upon her.  About this time, she would turn sick and trembling at any sudden noise, and could hardly repress her screams when startled.  This showed a fearful degree of physical weakness in one who was generally so self-controlled; and the medical man, whom at length, through Miss W—–­’s entreaty, she was led to consult, insisted on her return to the parsonage.  She had led too sedentary a life, he said; and the soft summer air, blowing round her home, the sweet company of those she loved, the release,