railroad_. _Tabby has left us_, _Martha Brown has come in her
place_. _We have got Keeper_, _got a sweet little cat and lost it_,
_and also got a hawk_. _Got a wild goose which has flown away_, _and
three tame ones_, _one of which has been killed_. _All these
diversities_, _with many others_, _are things we did not expect or
foresee in the July of_ 1837. _What will the next four years bring
forth_? _Providence only knows_. _But we ourselves have sustained
very little alteration since that time_. _I have the same faults
that I had then_, _only I have more wisdom and experience_, _and a
little more self-possession than I then enjoyed_. _How will it be
when we open this paper and the one Emily has written_? _I wonder
whether the Gondaliand will still be flourishing_, _and what will be
their condition_. _I am now engaged in writing the fourth volume of
Solala Vernon's Life_.

_For some time I have looked upon_ 25 _as a sort of era in my
existence_. _It may prove a true presentiment_, _or it may be only a
superstitious fancy_; _the latter seems most likely_, _but time will
show_.

_Anne Bronte_.

Let us next take up the other two little scraps of paper. They are dated
July the 30th, 1845, or Emily's twenty-seventh birthday. Many things
have happened, as she says. She has been to Brussels, and she has
settled definitely at home again. They are still keenly interested in
literature, and we still hear of the Gondals. There is wonderfully
little difference in the tone or spirit of the journals. The concluding
'best wishes for this whole house till July the 30th, 1848, and as much
longer as may be,' contain no premonition of coming disaster. Yet July
1848 was to find Branwell Bronte on the verge of the grave, and Emily on
her deathbed. She died on the 14th of December of that year.

_Haworth_, _Thursday_, _July_ 30_th_, 1845.

_My birthday_--_showery_, _breezy_, _cool_. _I am twenty-seven years
old to-day_. _This morning Anne and I opened the papers we wrote
four years since_, _on my twenty-third birthday_. _This paper we
intend_, _if all be well_, _to open on my thirtieth_--_three years
hence_, _in_ 1848. _Since the_ 1841 _paper the following events have
taken place_. _Our school scheme has been abandoned_, _and inst