dim with sorrow to see well. Believe me, your not very happy, but obliged friend and servant,
"P. B.Brontë."
But not till three days later the end came. By that time Anne was home to tend the woman who had taken her, a little child, into her love and always kept her there. Anne had ever lived gladly with Miss Branwell; her more dejected spirit did not resent the occasional oppressions, the little tyrannies, which revolted Charlotte and silenced Emily. And, at the last, all the constant self-sacrifice of those twenty years, spent for their sake in a strange and hated country, would shine out, and yet more endear the sufferer to those who had to lose her. On the 29th of October Branwell again writes to his friend:—
"My dear Sir,
"As I don't want to lose a real friend, I write in deprecation of the tone of your letter. Death only has made me neglectful of your kindness, and I have lately had so much experience with him, that your sister would not now blame 'me for indulging in gloomy visions either of this world or of another. I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two nights witnessing such agonising suffering as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure; and I have now lost the pride and director of all the happy days connected with my childhood. I have suffered such sorrow since I last saw you at Haworth, that I do not now care if I were fighting in India, or——since, when the mind is depressed, danger is the most effectual cure."
Miss Branwell was dead. All was over: she was buried on a Tuesday morning, before Charlotte and
