skill and experience from Leeds to see her. He
examined her with the stethoscope. His report I forbear to dwell on
for the present--even skilful physicians have often been mistaken in
their conjectures.

'My first impulse was to hasten her away to a warmer climate, but
this was forbidden: she must not travel; she is not to stir from the
house this winter; the temperature of her room is to be kept
constantly equal.

'Had leave been given to try change of air and scene, I should hardly
have known how to act. I could not possibly leave papa; and when I
mentioned his accompanying us, the bare thought distressed him too
much to be dwelt upon. Papa is now upwards of seventy years of age;
his habits for nearly thirty years have been those of absolute
retirement; any change in them is most repugnant to him, and probably
could not, at this time especially when the hand of God is so heavy
upon his old age, be ventured upon without danger.

'When we lost Emily I thought we had drained the very dregs of our
cup of trial, but now when I hear Anne cough as Emily coughed, I
tremble lest there should be exquisite bitterness yet to taste.
However, I must not look forwards, nor must I look backwards. Too
often I feel like one crossing an abyss on a narrow plank--a glance
round might quite unnerve.

'So circumstanced, my dear sir, what claim have I on your friendship,
what right to the comfort of your letters? My literary character is
effaced for the time, and it is by that only you know me. Care of
papa and Anne is necessarily my chief present object in life, to the
exclusion of all that could give me interest with my publishers or
their connections. Should Anne get better, I think I could rally and
become Currer Bell once more, but if otherwise, I look no farther:
sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

'Anne is very patient in her illness, as patient as Emily was
unflinching. I recall one sister and look at the other with a sort
of reverence as well as affection--under the test of suffering
neither has faltered.

'All the days of this winter have gone by darkly and heavily like a
funeral train. Since September, sickness has not quitted the house.
It is strange it did not use to be so, but I suspect now all this has
been coming on for years. Unused, any of us, to the po