purple moors, which remained with
them through life. When angry, Mr. Bronte would say nothing, but they
could hear him out at the door firing pistol-shots in quick succession
as a relief to his feelings. The children were unnaturally quiet and
well-behaved. The old nurse says:--

"You would never have known there was a child in the house, they
were such noiseless, good little creatures. I used to think them
spiritless, they were so different from any children I had ever
seen."

They used to read the newspapers, write little stories, and act plays,
and at one time conducted a magazine of their own. Like all imaginative
children, they played in stories, each one taking part in the stirring
romances they invented. They were great believers in the supernatural,
too, and the denizens of the adjoining churchyard played quite a
prominent part in their childish lives. This churchyard, which was so
near the parsonage, added much to the gloom and unhealthiness of the old
manse, and many people have attributed the ill health of all the girls
to its close proximity. It was depressing, to say the least, to such
imaginative children as those of Mr. Bronte.

It was not long after the mother's death that the two older girls, Maria
and Elizabeth, were taken to a school at Cowan's Bridge, a small hamlet
in the north of England, and the younger children were left more lonely
than ever. This school, which had been selected on account of its
cheapness, had been established for the daughters of clergymen, and the
entire expenses were fourteen pounds a year. Cowan's Bridge is prettily
situated, just where the Leck-fells sweep into the plain; and by the
course of the beck, alders and willows and hazel bushes grow. This
little shallow, sparkling stream runs through long green pastures, and
has many little falls over beds of gray rocks. The school-house had been
made from an old bobbin-mill, and the situation proved to be remarkably
unhealthy. This is the school so realistically described by Charlotte in
"Jane Eyre." "Helen Burns" is an exact transcript of Maria Bronte, and
every scene is a literal description of events which took place at this
school. The whole thing was burned into Charlotte's memory so indelibly
that she reproduced it with photographic exactness. Emily and Charlotte
had followed the other sisters there, after a year or two, so that all
of them suffered to a greater or less extent from the privations and