record the death of Emily and the passionate affection which her
sisters bore her.

And so we are brought back to the point from which we started. It is not
as the writer of 'Wildfell Hall,' but as the sister of Charlotte and
Emily Bronte, that Anne Bronte escapes oblivion--as the frail 'little
one,' upon whom the other two lavished a tender and protecting care, who
was a witness of Emily's death, and herself, within a few minutes of her
own farewell to life, bade Charlotte 'take courage.'

'When my thoughts turn to Anne,' said Charlotte many years earlier, 'they
always see her as a patient, persecuted stranger,--more lonely, less
gifted with the power of making friends even than I am.' Later on,
however, this power of making friends seems to have belonged to Anne in
greater measure than to the others. Her gentleness conquered; she was
not set apart, as they were, by the lonely and self-sufficing activities
of great powers; her Christianity, though sad and timid, was of a kind
which those around her could understand; she made no grim fight with
suffering and death as did Emily. Emily was 'torn' from life 'conscious,
panting, reluctant,' to use Charlotte's own words; Anne's 'sufferings
were mild,' her mind 'generally serene,' and at the last 'she thanked God
that death was come, and come so gently.' When Charlotte returned to the
desolate house at Haworth, Emily's large house-dog and Anne's little
spaniel welcomed her in 'a strange, heart-touching way,' she writes to
Mr. Williams. She alone was left, heir to all the memories and tragedies
of the house. She took up again the task of life and labour. She cared
for her father; she returned to the writing of 'Shirley'; and when she
herself passed away, four years later, she had so turned those years to
account that not only all she did but all she loved had passed silently
into the keeping of fame. Mrs. Gaskell's touching and delightful task
was ready for her, and Anne, no less than Charlotte and Emily, was sure
of England's remembrance.

MARY A. WARD.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE {1}
TO THE SECOND EDITION

While I acknowledge the success of the present work to have been greater
than I anticipated, and the praises it has elicited from a few kind
critics to have been greater than it deserved, I must also admit that
from some other quarters it has been censured with an asperity which I
was as little prepar