ned for her friend's company; but it was to
be obtained only by shrinking from what she esteemed right, and that she
never did, whatever might be the sacrifice.

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 retur