Emily was the prettiest." Mrs.Bronte was the same patient, cheerful person as we have seen her formerly; very ill, suffering great pain, but seldom if ever complaining; at her better times begging her nurse to raise her in bed to let her see her clean the grate, "because she did it as it was done in Cornwall;" devotedly fond of her husband, who warmly repaid her affection, and suffered no one else to take the night-nursing; but, according to my informant, the mother was not very anxious to see much of her children, probably because the sight of them, knowing how soon they were to be left motherless, would have agitated her too much.

So the little things clung quietly together, for their father was busy in his study and in his parish, or with their mother, and they took their meals alone; sat reading, or whispering low, in the "children's study," or wandered out on the hill-side, hand in hand.
The ideas of Rousseau and Mr.Day on education had filtered down through many classes, and spread themselves widely out.

I imagine, Mr.Bronte must have formed some of his opinions on the management of children from these two theorists.

His practice was not half so wild or extraordinary as that to which an aunt of mine was subjected by a disciple of Mr.
Day's.

She had been taken by this gentleman and his wife, to live with them as their adopted child, perhaps about five-and-twenty years before the time of which I am writing.