Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/22

xviii allowed to her, though two seemed to have got into the house. Emily was very happy on the moor and talked freely.

1835.—Emily, when close on seventeen, went to school at Roe Head with Charlotte. The change from her own home to a school, and from her secluded but free and simple life to discipline and companionship, she found intolerable. She became miserably ill, threatening consumption, and had to go home. This restored her health almost immediately.

In this year she found her brother Branwell beginning to go wrong, drinking in the public house and doing no work.

1836 (Midsummer).—Miss Nussey and Charlotte went to Haworth, and the girls had a taste of happiness and enjoyment. 'They were beginning to feel conscious of their powers, they were rich in each other's companionship; their health was good, their spirits were high, there was often joyousness and mirth; they commented on what they read; analysed articles and their writers also; the perfection of unrestrained talk and intelligence brightened the close of the days which were passing all too swiftly.' Charlotte and Emily would dance in exuberant spirits.