to save herself, flung her arms forward, and bounded diagonally down the stage, as if to take a flying leap over footlights and orchestra, far out into the very pit. She did really almost do it; she was barely able to stop herself just behind the lights. For an instant she was white with terror; then, she turned crimson with intense pain and mortification; trembled, hid her face in her hands, almost fainted. Some of the audience, well-meaning, applauded, to restore her courage; and this, of course, she misinterpreted to be satirical applause. Others said "Hush!" and "Sh!" and this she thought was hissing for her blunder. A very few laughed -for which there was reason, if not excuse; the sense of the ridiculous is far stronger than sympathy, in some minds. Hamlet stepped promptly forward, intending to carry the dialogue straight on, as if nothing had happened, and, "cutting" five lines and a half, resumed, holding out both hands to her,

-"Soft you, now! The fair Ophelia !"

said without great efforts; yet, indeed, she was lovely enough to admire and applaud, if she had only stood still to be looked at. But her flushed face showed plainly that she was making a most painful effort, and I was glad when she went off for the last time with the Queen in Act IV.

Indeed, although I remained until the curtain fell, I paid very little attention to the remainder of the performance, and am quite unable to offer any criticisms upon the church-yard scene, or the combat in the last Act.

The rest is brief. Next day Mrs. Willis was ill with a nervous fever from effort and over-excitement, and she only recovered her usual perfect though delicate health after some months, and the still longer subsequent process of a journey to Europe. It was, accordingly, more than a year before I saw her and her husband again. When I did, almost the first thing Tom Willis said was, as I entered his parlor,

'Here, Charley-here's one of the people you were wishing for, one day; do you remember?"

off the parlor, where sat Susy, content

And he drew me into a little room

edly rocking a cradle with a baby in it, while she sewed on some white fabric or other.

The little lady was unaffectedly pleased at our meeting, and I was, too. "What people do you mean, dear?" she asked her husband.

He pointed to the young gentieman in the cradle.

"You wished for him?" said she to me, inquiringly. "You can't have

him!"

"No," I said; "Tom is remembering something I said to him, one day. I had an idea that, if this young person had been here, you would not have "

I hesitated; but Susy understood me, and blushed and smiled.

"I shouldn't," she said simply. "I'm as glad as he is, now, that I broke down."

Onthank was pensioned off when the

The reason that so little has ever been heard of Mrs. Willis' "first appearance," and of the consequent triumph of her tyrant, I easily ascertained on the very morning after the performance. The reporter of the Daily Despot had done exactly what I hoped; and, with one consent, the dailies of the next day abstained from any reference to the doings of the evening, except the merest

then enacted, and none of them named

Mrs. Willis even by her proposed theatrical surname. I have no doubt that the vengeful brethren of the quill fully believe that they were the people who really gained a victory, and that their silence was the grave where an agonized débutante was buried alive; whereas Mr. Thomas Willis was really, so to speak, the tyrant who triumphed.

I WAS obliged to wait two hours for the train on the branch railway to Haworth, and spent most of the time in the waiting-room with the motherly old attendant, who knew the neighborhood well, and could tell me much about the family which had made it famous. I met there, also, a very agreeable gentlewoman, who travelled. with me for a short distance, and, on our separating, bade me look at the tomb of her family in Haworth churchyard, as her ancestors for many generations had lived in the vicinity, and it was only within a few years that she had left her old home for the more stirring life of Manchester. After leaving Bradford, the road passes through several small manufacturing villages, of which Keightley (pronounced Keethley) is the most important, and peculiarly interesting to me, as having been the nearest station to Haworth in former times, and the terminus of many a walk of the Bronté sisters. A few miles further on, the guide called out "Haworth," and, after barely giving time for the few passengers to alight, the train passed on, and I was left standing on the platform of the solitary little station at the foot of the hills, the hamlet of which I was in search being on the top of one of them. I waited until the few people had taken up their line of march, when I followed them, and

ventured to accost a tall, sedate-looking woman who was nearest me, as to the prospect of finding a lodging in the village. As soon as she heard that I was an American, and had come so far out of my way to see Haworth, she became very cordial, and introduced me to the little company generally, who made me welcome in a simple, hearty fashion, which was very promising, and beguiled for me the exceeding steepness of the ascent. Instead of going by the paved road, we followed a narrow path between stone walls which wound among the fields, so that I was almost in the centre of the village before I recognized its nearness. It is built mainly upon one long street, and, as we emerged from the high-walled lane, I saw all the famous localities at once. There were the church, the parsonage, the churchyard 66 terribly full of upright tombstones," and beyond these the dim outline of the moors. The little inn of "The Black Bull" was directly in front of us; but it was not till I had entered that I discovered the landlady in the modest companion of my walk. She was willing to keep me, but feared she could not make me comfortable, as the next day (Sunday) was the anniversary of the Sunday-school, and on Monday the annual fair of the "Rush-bearing" would begin; consequently, her carpets had all been taken

up, and the house made as plain as possible, to stand the wear and tear of the crowds of rough-shod countrymen who were expected to make it their headquarters for the next three days. One little room up-stairs, however, had been left undisturbed, and that was given to me. It was old-fashioned and queer, and the bed, besides having high posts, was so high itself, that a pair of steps stood ready at the head to assist the future incumbent to scale its mountain of feathers. From my open window I could look across a lane at the rear of the inn to the Mechanics' Institute-a modest building, containing the village library and a room for reading and debate. The intervening space had been rented for the fair-time by owners of booths for refreshments and fancy articles, a few of which were already in operation, and in the centre had been planted one of those whirligig machines which seem to be an accompaniment of similar festivities in every part of the world, wherein a large number of children go round and round, imagining themselves meanwhile on horseback or in a carriage. Of course, so novel an amusement had greatly roused the village children, and they stood by in full force, while a few of their number, the happy possessors of a half-penny or so, mounted the machine and flashed by before the envious gaze of their impecunious companions. It was quite an amusing sight; but when speaking of it to the landlady, during the good dinner to which I was presently called, she replied, that the machine should never be allowed to come there again, for she fairly stalled wi' their noise." I remembered the Yorkshire expression for fatigue, and could have hugged the good woman for allowing me to hear it in Yorkshire air. My dinner was served in the private parlor-a pleasant room, with an open fire-place, and windows looking upon the street, and furnished with a shiny hair-cloth sofa, and oak chairs of antique form grown dark and glossy with age. It was the same room to which Branwell Bronté had often been summoned for the entertainment

was

of such travellers as were above the ordinary society of the Black Bull.

After dinner I went out, and, in obedience to my rule of "business before pleasure," proceeded to secure photographs and other souvenirs of the place, before beginning my round of personal inspection. One of the shop-keepers was a woman, a fair, plump matron, who had once been a pupil of Charlotte in the Sunday-school. I made the acquaintance of several persons in the course of my shopping, all of whom could give reminiscences of the family; and though the incidents were mainly the same that I had read, they seemed fresh and new when heard from living lips. One man asked me if the village looked as I had expected to find it. On my answering in the affirmative, he continued, "But don't you find the people less rough in their manners than Mrs. Gaskell has described them?" I could bear willing testimony to their courtesy and kindness, so far as I had been brought into contact with them, and made haste to do so, to his evident gratification; for the pride of the inhabitants had no doubt suffered from that strong picture of their local peculiarities.

After securing my photographs, I started with my mind free to enjoy the experiences that were yet to come. The churchyard adjoins the inn at one corner, and I passed through the great iron gates, which had been opened for a funeral procession. The ordinary entrance is between open posts at the other end of the church, for the enclosure is a thoroughfare, affording a short cut to the farm-houses and moors beyond. None but foot-passengers can enter it, however, as the place is too thickly sown with graves to allow of a carriage-road; and the paths, excepting one to the church-door, are not welldefined, because people wind their way among the tombs, or walk upon the huge flat memorial-stones to suit their convenience. Between the church and the wall which separates it from the street, a small space has been carefully arranged in flower-beds, which were

gay with roses and pansies, and other old-fashioned flowers, at the time of my visit. But elsewhere there is no room for adornment, and a stunted ivy upon the church, and a few shrubs scattered among the graves, alone break the cheerless monotony of gray stone and white marble. The first slab that I paused to examine contained the well-known verse that so puzzled David Copperfield's infant meditations in church:

Afflictions sore long time I bore,
Physicians were in vain,

But Death gave ease when God did please,
And freed me from my pain.

Another announced that

Man but dives in death

Dives from the sun in fairer day to rise,
The grave his subterranean road to bliss.

I was particularly struck by the extent of mortality in some families, and the wholesale manner of recording such afflictions. Thus, one stone was erected "in memory of eight children of Robert and Alice Hey, of Bradford, who all died young." Another was to "Bernard Hartley, who died aged fortyone years also to eleven children of his who all died young." Another, “to five children who died young." There was one to an infant "who lived three hundred and nine days"—a calculation which saved the trouble of division into weeks and months.

In my wanderings among the graves I had reached the upper end of the enclosure very near the parsonage. Of course, my dearest wish had been to enter the house, especially the room where the sisters had been accustomed to sit together, and where the last survivor had so often paced to and fro in the lonely evenings, haunted by the faces that had vanished and the voices that were silenced forever.

But I was told that the present rector had positively refused admission to every stranger that had applied; and, in view of the thousands who visit the place, one cannot blame him for asserting his right to domestic privacy. He never knew the Bronté family, and, though he takes pride in their fame, he

cannot be expected to open his house to all who, through curiosity, or even a better motive, may wish to see their former haunts. Besides, the gratification would be only partial, if it would not better deserve to be called a disappointment; for the house has been modernized and completely refurnished, and no trace of its former occupancy remains. Even "the small oldfashioned window-panes" have been exchanged for the light sash and large glass of the present day. It is easy to tell from the outside the arrangement of the rooms, and so there is nothing lost but the blessed consciousness of having been in the very places made sacred through the habitual presence of those gifted beings.

By standing on a tombstone, I could see over the hedge into the front yard; and, as I could do this without intrusion, I took a long and careful survey of the premises. There were the massive stone steps which they had daily crossed, and the old-fashioned front door which had closed upon them all one after another as they were carried to their burial. The flower-beds under the windows still remained, but the square grass-plot" was now adorned with a large circular mound aflame with verbenas and scarlet geraniums. The grass was cut close and looked like velvet, and the gravei-paths were trim and neat. The place was evidently well cared for; and, as I heard the cheerful voices of the rector and his wife, who were at work in the lower end of the garden, and saw the white curtains waving in the summer air through the open windows, I imagined how it might have been during that brief period in Charlotte's experience, when "the sacred doors of home" were "closed upon her married life," and "her loving friends standing outside caught occasional glimpses of brightness and pleasant peaceful murmurs of sound, telling of the gladness within."

Returning towards the church, I found it open, and the sexton's wife sweeping and dusting for the next day's festival, while the sexton was dancing

the baby upon a tombstone by the door. Remembering the numerous deaths of children I had seen recorded, I asked the man whether the close proximity of so crowded a graveyard—which is also at a higher elevation than the townwere not injurious to the public health. He admitted that it had been so in past times, when the people used water from the village wells, and found it often แ "greasy;" but during a severe epidemic, a company of chemists came from London, and, after testing the water, forbade its use; since when the inhabitants had brought water from springs found on neighboring farms above the level of the churchyard.

I

Haworth church is very old, even as compared with many other ecclesiastical relics in England. It has been claimed that the tower was built in the year 600; but this idea first arose from a misinterpretation of a half-obliterated inscription on the wall. The outside is plain; the windows are large, and filled with common glass in small panes. noticed, in some of these panes, a protuberance as large as an egg, and asked the sexton how they came there. He said that the glass was made long ago, before its manufacture had been so well understood as now, and when a defect could not so easily be remedied. He added, that each of these protuberances acted as a burning-glass, and churchgoers were always careful to avoid their vicinity in a sunny day.

The sexton's wife was evidently accustomed to the visits of strangers, and she now proceeded to show me the objects of greatest interest. The interior of the church is quaint and queer enough to cyes accustomed to the regularity of American church architecture. The pulpit is high, with an umbrella-like sounding-board over it. In front of the pulpit, and a few feet lower down, is the reading-desk; and still lower is a little nook for the clerk, or other inferior official. But these seats of authority are not at one end of the building, as is usual with us, but in the middle of one side, and the pews are built close up to them; while the communion

table, enclosed in a small chancel, is at the eastern end. The gallery, broad and low, and divided into pews, runs around the other three sides; the organ stands at the eastern end, over the communion-table. The pews below are square and high, and divided by two aisles paved with tombstones, for the space underneath the church is full of graves; and, after the interment of Mr. Bronté, it was decided not to allow any more burials there. The Bronté pew is the last of the body-pews on the side next the pulpit. There is only a narrow passage between it and the little chancel, and on the wall over the communion-table is the tablet containing the record of the departed family, while under the pavement is the family vault. The pew is cushioned with green moreen, and remains as formerly, the rector's family preferring a better-lighted seat; consequently this one is rented to a parishioner, and is often filled with strangers. I asked permission to sit there on the morrow, which was readily granted; and then the sexton pointed out the places once occupied by the sisters: Emily in the farther corner, facing the clergyman, Anne next, and Charlotte by the door. While he was talking, I sat down for a few moments in each seat, for fear that I should have no chance the next day. My conscience is guiltless of any vandalism towards works of art in the Old World. I have never chipped a statue, nor written my name upon the wall of a renowned building; but I have loved to sit and think where my heroes and heroines have sat and thought, and to touch with reverent hand some object which they knew in life. After reading with my own eyes the small black lettering on the tablet which had long been familiar through print and photograph, and drawing aside the carpet in the narrow aisle below, to read the original inscription upon the slab that was fitted over the vault when Mrs. Bronté died, I followed the guide to the vestry, a small room in the tower, where I saw the antique communion-service procured by Mr. Grimshaw, the energetic and eccentric rector