mother living,
it appeared both a discreet and seemly arrangement that the marriage
should take place from her uncle's house. There was no reason either why
the engagement should be prolonged. They were past their first youth;
they had means sufficient for their unambitious wants; the living of
Hartshead is rated in the Clergy List at 202_l_. per annum, and she was
in the receipt of a small annuity (50_l_. I have been told) by the will
of her father. So, at the end of September, the lovers began to talk
about taking a house, for I suppose that Mr. Bronte up to that time had
been in lodgings; and all went smoothly and successfully with a view to
their marriage in the ensuing winter, until November, when a misfortune
happened, which she thus patiently and prettily describes:--

"I suppose you never expected to be much the richer for me, but I am
sorry to inform you that I am still poorer than I thought myself. I
mentioned having sent for my books, clothes, &c. On Saturday evening,
about the time when you were writing the description of your imaginary
shipwreck, I was reading and feeling the effects of a real one, having
then received a letter from my sister giving me an account of the vessel
in which she had sent my box being stranded on the coast of Devonshire,
in consequence of which the box was dashed to pieces with the violence of
the sea, and all my little property, with the exception of a very few
articles, being swallowed up in the mighty deep. If this should not
prove the prelude to something worse I shall think little of it, as it is
the first disastrous circumstance which has occurred since I left my
home."

The last of these letters is dated December the 5th. Miss Branwell and
her cousin intended to set about making the wedding-cake in the following
week, so the marriage could not be far off. She had been learning by
heart a "pretty little hymn" of Mr. Bronte's composing; and reading Lord
Lyttelton's "Advice to a Lady," on which she makes some pertinent and
just remarks, showing that she thought as well as read. And so Maria
Branwell fades out of sight; we have no more direct intercourse with her;
we hear of her as Mrs. Bronte, but it is as an invalid, not far from
death; still patient, cheerful, and pious. The writing of these letters
is elegant and neat; while there are allusions to household
occupations--such as making the wedding-cake; there are also allusions to
the books she has read, or is re