Looking for work
I do not remember everything they did. Charlotte and Anne worked as governesses for some mouths, teaching rich children in big houses, and Branwell got a job like that too, for a while But they didn’t like their work. At home my children were full of talk and laughter, but away from home they where shy, quite, unhappy.
They wrote a lot of letters in their search for work-sometimes to famous people. Branwell wanted to be a writer, so he wrote to writers; but not many of them of them wrote back. He began to look pale and sad in those days, and he was often in the village pub, drinking and talking to the people there. Then he got a job selling tickets on the railways, and left home.
The girls had an idea. I remember the day when they told me about it. Charlotte and Anne were at home on holiday, and we were all in the sitting-room after dinner one evening. Anne was playing the piano, and singing quietly to herself. She was the prettiest of the there girls, I suppose. She had long wavy brown hair, and a gentle, kind face. Emily sat on the floor beside her, stroking the ears of her dog, Keeper. Charlotte sat opposite me on the sofa, like a little child with a serious, thoughtful face. She was the smallest; her feet were no bigger than my hands.
She looked at me carefully. Papa, she said. We want to start a school.
Really, my dear. Where.