s would be jumping about the dish and carving-knife, and the
latter standing like a devouring flame on the kitchen-floor. To complete
the picture, Tabby blowing the fire, in order to boil the potatoes to a
sort of vegetable glue! How divine are these recollections to me at this
moment! Yet I have no thought of coming home just now. I lack a real
pretext for doing so; it is true this place is dismal to me, but I cannot
go home without a fixed prospect when I get there; and this prospect must
not be a situation; that would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the
fire. _You_ call yourself idle! absurd, absurd! . . . Is papa well? Are
you well? and Tabby? You ask about Queen Victoria's visit to Brussels. I
saw her for an instant flashing through the Rue Royale in a carriage and
six, surrounded by soldiers. She was laughing and talking very gaily.
She looked a little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed, not much
dignity or pretension about her. The Belgians liked her very well on the
whole. They said she enlivened the sombre court of King Leopold, which
is usually as gloomy as a conventicle. Write to me again soon. Tell me
whether papa really wants me very much to come home, and whether you do
likewise. I have an idea that I should be of no use there--a sort of
aged person upon the parish. I pray, with heart and soul, that all may
continue well at Haworth; above all in our grey half-inhabited house. God
bless the walls thereof! Safety, health, happiness, and prosperity to
you, papa, and Tabby. Amen.

"C. B."

Towards the end of this year (1843) various reasons conspired with the
causes of anxiety which have been mentioned, to make her feel that her
presence was absolutely and imperatively required at home, while she had
acquired all that she proposed to herself in coming to Brussels the
second time; and was, moreover, no longer regarded with the former
kindliness of feeling by Madame Heger. In consequence of this state of
things, working down with sharp edge into a sensitive mind, she suddenly
announced to that lady her immediate intention of returning to England.
Both M. and Madame Heger agreed that it would be for the best, when they
learnt only that part of the case which she could reveal to them--namely,
Mr. Bronte's increasing blindness. But as the inevitable moment of
separation from people and places, among which she had spent so many
happy hours, drew near, her spirits gave way; she had