four papers were written by Emily, and two by Anne;
each sister keeping for the other a record of four years. They begin in
eighteen-forty-one. Emily was then twenty-four and Anne a year and a
half younger. Nothing can be more childlike, more naive. Emily heads her
diary:

A PAPER to be opened
when Anne is
25 years old,
or my next birthday after
if
all be well.
Emily Jane Bronte. July the 30th, 1841.

She says: "It is Friday evening, near nine o'clock--wild rainy weather.
I am seated in the dining-room, having just concluded tidying our
desk-boxes, writing this document. Papa is in the parlour--Aunt upstairs
in her room.... Victoria and Adelaide are ensconced in the peat-house.
Keeper is in the kitchen--Hero in his cage."

Having accounted for Victoria and Adelaide, the tame geese, Keeper, the
dog, and Hero, the hawk, she notes the whereabouts of Charlotte,
Branwell, and Anne. And then (with gravity):

"A scheme is at present in agitation for setting us up in a school of
our own."... "This day four years I wonder whether we shall be dragging
on in our present condition or established to our hearts' content."

Then Emily dreams her dream.

"I guess that on the time appointed for the opening of this paper we,
_i.e._ Charlotte, Anne, and I, shall be all merrily seated in our own
sitting-room in some pleasant and flourishing seminary, having just
gathered in for the midsummer holiday. Our debts will be paid off and we
shall have cash in hand to a considerable amount. Papa, Aunt, and
Branwell, will either have been or be coming to visit us."

And Anne writes with equal innocence (it is delicious, Anne's diary):
"Four years ago I was at school. Since then I have been a governess at
Blake Hall, left it, come to Thorp Green, and seen the sea and York
Minster."... "We have got Keeper, got a sweet little cat and lost it,
and also got a hawk. Got a wild goose which has flown away, and three
tame ones, one of which has been killed."

It is Emily who lets out the dreary secret of the dream--the debts which
could not be paid; probably Branwell's.

But the "considerable amount of cash in hand" was to remain a dream.
Nothing came of Branwell's knight-errantry. He muddled the accounts of
the Leeds and Manchester Railroad and was sent home. It was not good for
Branwell to be a clerk at a lonely wayside station. His disaster, which
they much exaggerated, was a shock to the three si