. . "The little
Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out
of the cranny in my wainscot; the bird in frost and snow that pecks at
my window for a crumb; the dog that licks my hand and sits beside my
knee. I know somebody to whose knee the black cat loves to climb,
against whose shoulder and cheek it likes to purr. The old dog always
comes out of his kennel and wags his tail, and whines affectionately
when somebody passes." [For "somebody" and "he," read "Charlotte
Bronte" and "she."] "He quietly strokes the cat, and lets her sit
while he conveniently can; and when he must disturb her by rising, he
puts her softly down, and never flings her from him roughly: he always
whistles to the dog, and gives him a caress."

The feeling, which in Charlotte partook of something of the nature of an
affection, was, with Emily, more of a passion. Some one speaking of her
to me, in a careless kind of strength of expression, said, "she never
showed regard to any human creature; all her love was reserved for
animals." The helplessness of an animal was its passport to Charlotte's
heart; the fierce, wild, intractability of its nature was what often
recommended it to Emily. Speaking of her dead sister, the former told me
that from her many traits in Shirley's character were taken; her way of
sitting on the rug reading, with her arm round her rough bull-dog's neck;
her calling to a strange dog, running past, with hanging head and lolling
tongue, to give it a merciful draught of water, its maddened snap at her,
her nobly stern presence of mind, going right into the kitchen, and
taking up one of Tabby's red-hot Italian irons to sear the bitten place,
and telling no one, till the danger was well-nigh over, for fear of the
terrors that might beset their weaker minds. All this, looked upon as a
well-invented fiction in "Shirley," was written down by Charlotte with
streaming eyes; it was the literal true account of what Emily had done.
The same tawny bull-dog (with his "strangled whistle"), called "Tartar"
in "Shirley," was "Keeper" in Haworth parsonage; a gift to Emily. With
the gift came a warning. Keeper was faithful to the depths of his nature
as long as he was with friends; but he who struck him with a stick or
whip, roused the relentless nature of the brute, who flew at his throat
forthwith, and held him there till one or the other was at the point of
death. Now Keeper's