BRONTE.'
TO MISS WOOLER
'HAWORTH, _September_ 21_st_, 1852.
'MY DEAR MISS WOOLER,--I was truly sorry to hear that when Ellen
called at the Parsonage you were suffering from influenza. I know
that an attack of this debilitating complaint is no trifle in your
case, as its effects linger with you long. It has been very
prevalent in this neighbourhood. I did not escape, but the sickness
and fever only lasted a few days and the cough was not severe. Papa,
I am thankful to say, continues pretty well; Ellen thinks him little,
if at all altered.
'And now for your kind present. The book will be precious to
me--chiefly, perhaps, for the sake of the giver, but also for its own
sake, for it is a good book; and I wish I may be enabled to read it
with some approach to the spirit you would desire. Its perusal came
recommended in such a manner as to obviate danger of neglect; its
place shall always be on my dressing-table.
'As to the other part of the present, it arrived under these
circumstances:
'For a month past an urgent necessity to buy and make some things for
winter-wear had been importuning my conscience; the _buying_ might be
soon effected, but the _making_ was a more serious consideration.
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