Page:Emily Bronte (Robinson 1883).djvu/76

64 but don't understand one sentence—perhaps you will know what I mean How are all about you? I long [all torn next] everything about Haworth folk. Does little Nosey think I have forgotten him. No, by Jupiter! nor is Alick either. I'll send him a remembrance one of these days. But I must talk to some one prettier; so good night, old boy. Write directly, and believe me to be thine,

Branwell's boasted reformation was not kept up for long. Soon he came back as heartless, as affectionate, as vain, as unprincipled as ever, to laugh and loiter about the steep street of Haworth. Then he went to Bradford as a portrait-painter, and—so impressive is audacity—actually succeeded for some months in gaining a living there, although his education was of the slenderest, and, judging from the specimens still treasured in Haworth, his natural talent on a level with that of the average new student in any school of art. His tawny mane, his pose of untaught genius, his verses in the poet's corner of the paper could not for ever keep afloat this untaught and thriftless portrait-painter of twenty. Soon there came an end to his painting there. He disappeared from Bradford suddenly, heavily in debt, and was lost to sight, until unnerved, a drunkard, and an opium-eater, he came back to home and Emily at Haworth.

Meanwhile impetuous Charlotte was growing nervous and weak, gentle Anne consumptive and dejected, in their work away from home; and Emily was toiling from dawn till dusk with her old servant Tabby for the old