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.
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