heir tea and supper. Mr.
Bronte joined them at tea, although he always dined alone in his study.
The children's dinner-table has been described to me by a visitor to the
house. At one end sat Miss Branwell, at the other, Charlotte, with Emily
and Anne on either side. Branwell was then absent. The living was of
the simplest. A single joint, followed invariably by one kind or another
of milk-pudding. Pastry was unknown in the Bronte household.
Milk-puddings, or food composed of milk and rice, would seem to have made
the principal diet of Emily and Anne Bronte, and to this they added a
breakfast of Scotch porridge, which they shared with their dogs. It is
more interesting, perhaps, to think of all the daydreams in that room, of
the mass of writing which was achieved there, of the conversations and
speculation as to the future. Miss Nussey has given a pleasant picture
of twilight when Charlotte and she walked with arms encircling one
another round and round the table, and Emily and Anne followed in similar
fashion. There was no lack of cheerfulness and of hope at that period.
Behind Mr. Bronte's studio was the kitchen; and there we may easily
picture the Bronte children telling stories to Tabby or Martha, or to
whatever servant reigned at the time, and learning, as all of them did,
to become thoroughly domesticated--Emily most of all. Behind the
dining-room was a peat-room, which, when Charlotte was married in 1854,
was cleared out and converted into a little study for Mr. Nicholls. The
staircase with its solid banister remains as it did half a century ago;
and at its foot one is still shown the corner which tradition assigns as
the scene of Emily's conflict with her dog Keeper. On the right, at the
back, as you mount the staircase, was a small room allotted to Branwell
as a studio. On the other side of this staircase, also at the back, was
the servants' room. In the front of the house, immediately over the
dining-room, was Miss Branwell's room, afterwards the spare bedroom until
Charlotte Bronte married. In that room she died. On the left, over Mr.
Bronte's study, was Mr. Bronte's bedroom. It was the room which, for
many years, he shared with Branwell, and it was in that room that
Branwell and his father died at an interval of twenty years. On the
staircase, half-way up, was a grandfather's clock, which Mr. Bronte used
to wind up every night on his way to bed. He always went to bed at nine
o'clock, and Mis