Page:Emily Bronte (Robinson 1883).djvu/83

Rh signed—Emily entering into all this with much spirit and amusement and finally despatched in mystery and secret glee.

At last this pleasant fooling came to an end. Charlotte advertised for a place, and found it. While she was away she had a letter from Miss Wooler, offering Charlotte the goodwill of her school at Dewsbury Moor. It was a chance not to be lost, although what inducement Emily and Charlotte could offer to their pupils it is not easy to imagine. But it was above all things necessary to make a home where delicate Anne might be sheltered, where homesick Emily could be happy, where Charlotte could have time to write, where all might live and work together. Miss Wooler's offer was immediately accepted. Miss Branwell was induced to lend the girls £100. No answer came from Miss Wooler. Then ambitious Charlotte, from her situation away, wrote to Miss Branwell at Haworth :— "September 29, 1841. ", "I have heard nothing of Miss Wooler yet since I wrote to her, intimating that I would accept her offer. I cannot conjecture the reason of this long silence, unless some unforeseen impediment has occurred in concluding the bargain. Meantime a plan has been suggested and approved by Mr. and Mrs. and others which I wish now to impart to you. My friends recommend, if I desire to secure permanent success, to delay commencing the school for six months longer, and by all means to contrive, by hook or by crook, to spend the intervening time in some school on the Continent. They say schools in England are so numerous, competition so great, that without some such step towards attaining