It is now so dark that, notwithstanding the singular property of seeing in the night-time, which the young ladies at Roe Head used to attribute to me, I can scribble no longer." To a visitor at the parsonage, it was a great thing to have Tabby's good word.

She had a Yorkshire keenness of perception into character, and it was not everybody she liked.
Haworth is built with an utter disregard of all sanitary conditions: the great old churchyard lies above all the houses, and it is terrible to think how the very water-springs of the pumps below must be poisoned.

But this winter of 1833-4 was particularly wet and rainy, and there were an unusual number of deaths in the village.

A dreary season it was to the family in the parsonage: their usual walks obstructed by the spongy state of the moors--the passing and funeral bells so frequently tolling, and filling the heavy air with their mournful sound--and, when they were still, the "chip, chip," of the mason, as he cut the grave-stones in a shed close by.

In many, living, as it were, in a churchyard, and with all the sights and sounds connected with the last offices to the dead things of everyday occurrence, the very familiarity would have bred indifference.