press purpose of eliciting
a reply. Anne was very much pleased with your letter; I presume she
has answered it before now. I would fain hope that her health is a
little stronger than it was, and her spirits a little better, but she
leads much too sedentary a life, and is continually sitting stooping
either over a book or over her desk. It is with difficulty we can
prevail upon her to take a walk or induce her to converse. I look
forward to next summer with the confident intention that she shall,
if possible, make at least a brief sojourn at the sea-side.

'I am sorry I inoculated you with fears about the east wind; I did
not feel the last blast so severely as I have often done. My
sympathies were much awakened by the touching anecdote. Did you
salute your boy-messenger with a box on the ear the next time he came
across you? I think I should have been strongly tempted to have done
as much. Mr. Nicholls is not yet returned. I am sorry to say that
many of the parishioners express a desire that he should not trouble
himself to recross the Channel. This is not the feeling that ought
to exist between shepherd and flock. It is not such as is prevalent
at Birstall. It is not such as poor Mr. Weightman excited.

'Give my best love to all of them, and--Believe me, yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

The next glimpse is more kindly.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_January_ 28_th_, 1850.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I cannot but be concerned to hear of your mother's
illness; write again soon, if it be but a line, to tell me how she
gets on. This shadow will, I trust and believe, be but a passing
one, but it is a foretaste and warning of what _must come_ one day.
Let it prepare your mind, dear Ellen, for that great trial which, if
you live, it _must_ in the course of a few years be your lot to
undergo. That cutting asunder of the ties of nature is the pain we
most dread and which we are most certain to experience. Lewes's
letter made me laugh; I cannot respect him more for it. Sir J. K.
Shuttleworth's letter did not make me laugh; he has written again
since. I have received to-day a note from Miss Alexander, daughter,
she says, of Dr. Alexander. Do you know anything of her?