Tabby moves about in her quaint country-
dress, frugal, peremptory, prone to find fault pretty sharply, yet
allowing no one else to blame her children, we may feel sure. Another
noticeable fact is the intelligent partisanship with which they choose
their great men, who are almost all stanch Tories of the time. Moreover,
they do not confine themselves to local heroes; their range of choice has
been widened by hearing much of what is not usually considered to
interest children. Little Anne, aged scarcely eight, picks out the
politicians of the day for her chief men.
There is another scrap of paper, in this all but illegible handwriting,
written about this time, and which gives some idea of the sources of
their opinions.
THE HISTORY OF THE YEAR 1829.
"Once Papa lent my sister Maria a book. It was an old geography-book;
she wrote on its blank leaf, 'Papa lent me this book.' This book is a
hundred and twenty years old; it is at this moment lying before me. While
I write this I am in the kitchen of the Parsonage, Haworth; Tabby, the
servant, is washing up the breakfast-things, and Anne, my youngest sister
(Maria was my eldest), is kneeling on a chair, looking at some cakes
which Tabby has been baking for us. Emily is in the parlour, brushing
the carpet. Papa and Branwell are gone to Keighley.
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