The moors were a great resource this spring; Emily and Charlotte walked out on them perpetually, “to the great damage of our shoes, but, I hope, to the benefit of our health.” The old plan of school-keeping was often discussed in these rambles; but in-doors they set with vigour to shirt-making for the absent Branwell, and pondered in silence over their past and future life. At last they came to a determination.

“I have seriously entered into the enterprise of keeping a school—or rather, taking a limited number of pupils at home. That is, I have begun in good earnest to seek for pupils. I wrote to Mrs. —” (the lady with whom she had lived as governess, just before going to Brussels) “not asking her for her daughter—I cannot do that—but informing her of my intention. I received an answer from Mr. — expressive of, I believe, sincere regret that I had not informed them a month sooner, in which case, he said, they would gladly have sent me their own daughter, and also Colonel S.'s, but that now both were promised to Miss C. I was partly disappointed by this answer, and partly gratified; indeed, I derived quite an impulse of encouragement from the warm assurance that if I had but applied a little sooner they would certainly have sent me their daughter.