each sister keeping for the other a record of four years. They begin in
eighteen-forty-one. Emily was then twenty-four and Anne a year and a
half younger. Nothing can be more childlike, more naïve. Emily heads her
diary:

A PAPER to be opened
when Anne is
25 years old,
or my next birthday after
if
all be well.
Emily Jane Brontë. July the 30th, 1841.

She says: "It is Friday evening, near nine o'clock--wild rainy weather.
I am seated in the dining-room, having just concluded tidying our
desk-boxes, writing this document. Papa is in the parlour--Aunt upstairs
in her room.... Victoria and Adelaide are ensconced in the peat-house.
Keeper is in the kitchen--Hero in his cage."

Having accounted for Victoria and Adelaide, the tame geese, Keeper, the
dog, and Hero, the hawk, she notes the whereabouts of Charlotte,
Branwell, and Anne. And then (with gravity):

"A scheme is at present in agitation for setting us up in a school of
our own."... "This day four years I wonder whether we shall be dragging
on in our present condition or established to our hearts' content."

Then Emily dreams her dream.

"I guess that on the time appointed for the opening of this paper we,