sor_, and close upon _The
Professor_, _Jane Eyre_. In the same term that found her also, poor
child, free, and at Haworth, Anne wrote _Agnes Grey_ and _The Tenant of
Wildfell Hall_.

And Emily wrote _Wuthering Heights_.

They had found their destiny--at Haworth.

* * * * *

Every conceivable theory has been offered to account for the novels that
came so swiftly and incredibly from these three sisters. It has been
said that they wrote them merely to pay their debts when they found that
poems did not pay. It would be truer to say that they wrote them because
it was their destiny to write them, and because their hour had come, and
that they published them with the dimmest hope of a return.

Before they knew where they were, Charlotte found herself involved in
what she thought was a businesslike and masculine correspondence with
publishing firms.

The _Poems_ by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, appeared first, and
nothing happened. _The Professor_ travelled among publishers, and
nothing happened. Then, towards the end of the fourth year there came
_Jane Eyre_, and Charlotte was famous.

But not Emily. _Wuthering Heights_ appeared also, and nothing happened.
It was bound in the same volume with Anne's humble tale. Its lightning
should have scorched and consumed _Agnes Grey_, but nothing happened.
Ellis and Acton Bell remained equals in obscurity, recognized only by
their association with the tremendous Currer. When it came to publishing
_The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_, and association became confusion,
Charlotte and Anne went up to London to prove their separate identity.
Emily stayed at Haworth, superbly indifferent to the proceedings. She
was unseen, undreamed of, unrealized, and in all her life she made no
sign.

But, in a spirit of reckless adventure, Charlotte and Anne walked the
seven miles to Keighley on a Friday evening in a thunderstorm, and took
the night train up. On the Saturday morning they appeared in the office
at Cornhill to the amazement of Mr. George Smith and Mr. Williams. With
childlike innocence and secrecy they hid in the Chapter Coffee-house in
Paternoster Row, and called themselves the Misses Brown. When
entertainment was offered them, they expressed a wish to hear Dr. Croly
preach. They did not hear him; they only heard _The Barber of Seville_
at Covent Garden. They tried, with a delicious solemnity, to give the
whole thing an air of business, but it was really a