Long
before Maria Bronte died, at the age of eleven, her father used to say he
could converse with her on any of the leading topics of the day with as
much freedom and pleasure as with any grown-up person.
CHAPTER IV
About a year after Mrs. Bronte's death, an elder sister, as I have before
mentioned, came from Penzance to superintend her brother-in-law's
household, and look after his children. Miss Branwell was, I believe, a
kindly and conscientious woman, with a good deal of character, but with
the somewhat narrow ideas natural to one who had spent nearly all her
life in the same place. She had strong prejudices, and soon took a
distaste to Yorkshire. From Penzance, where plants which we in the north
call greenhouse flowers grow in great profusion, and without any shelter
even in the winter, and where the soft warm climate allows the
inhabitants, if so disposed, to live pretty constantly in the open air,
it was a great change for a lady considerably past forty to come and take
up her abode in a place where neither flowers nor vegetables would
flourish, and where a tree of even moderate dimensions might be hunted
for far and wide; where the snow lay long and late on the moors,
stretching bleakly and barely far up from the dwelling which was
henceforward to be her home; and where often, on autumnal or winter
nights, the four winds of heaven seemed to meet and rage together,
tearing round the house as if they were wild beasts striving to find an
entrance.
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