day's work, and learned all details of it as accurately as any German maiden at her cookery school. Emily took very kindly to even the hardest housework; there she felt able and necessary; and, doubtless, upstairs, grimly listening to prim Miss Branwell's stories of bygone gaieties, this awkward growing girl was glad to remember that she too was of importance to the household, despite her tongue-tied brooding.
The girls fared well enough; but not so their brother. Branwell's brilliant purposelessness, Celtic gaiety, love of amusement and light heart made him the most charming playfellow, but a very anxious charge. Friends advised Mr. Brontë to send his son to school, but the peculiar vanity which made him model his children's youth in all details on his own forbad him to take their counsel. Since he had fed on potatoes, his children should eat no meat. Since he had grown up at home as best he might, why should Patrick Branwell go to school? Every day the father gave a certain portion of his time to working with his boy; but a clergyman's time is not his own, and often he was called away on parish business. Doubtless Mr. Brontë thought these tutorless hours were spent, as he would have spent them, in earnest preparation of difficult tasks. But Branwell, with all his father's superficial charm of manner, was without the underlying strength of will, and he possessed, unchecked, the temptations to self-indulgence, to which his father seldom yielded, counteracting them rather by an ascetic regimen of life. These long afternoons were spent, not in work, but in mischievous companionship with the wilder spirits of the village, to whom "t' Vicar's Patrick" was the standard of brilliant leadership in scrapes.
No doubt their admiration flattered Branwell, and he enjoyed the noisy fun they had together. Nevertheless
