Emily never left the house after Branwell's death. She made no complaint, but her friends could see that she was deadly ill. Yet she would have no doctor, and insisted upon going on with her work as usual. This she did until she was actually dying. Branwell had insisted upon standing up to die; and poor Emily had scarcely consented to lie down, when she was gone. Their will-power in their last agonies was something almost fearful to contemplate. As the old bereaved father and Charlotte and Anne followed the coffin to the grave, Emily's old, fierce, faithful bull-dog, to which she had been so much attached, came out and walked beside them. When they returned he lay down by Emily's door, and howled pitifully for many days. Charlotte recurred to this death-scene continually. In one letter she says:-- "I cannot forget Emily's death-day; it becomes a more fixed, a darker, a more frequently recurring idea in my mind than ever. It was very terrible. She was torn, conscious, panting, reluctant, though resolute, out of a happy life. But it will not do to dwell on these things." Anne Bronté did not long survive her sister, and Charlotte was now alone except that she had the care of her aged father, who was feeble and nearly blind. The awful loneliness of the old house almost crazed her, but she went faithfully to work, and bore up with unheard of fortitude. Two or three solitary years went by, when Mr. Nichols, her father's curate, renewed his suit to Miss Bronté. Mrs. Gaskell tells us that he was one who had known her intimately for years, and was not a man to be attracted by any kind of literary fame. He was a grave, reserved, conscientious man, with strong religious feeling. In silence he had watched and loved her long. She thus describes the meeting:-- "Instead I heard a tap, and like lightning it flashed upon me what was coming. He entered. He stood before me. What his words were you can imagine; his manner you can hardly realize, nor can I forget it. He made me for the first time feel what it costs a man to declare affection when he doubts response.... The spectacle of one ordinarily so statue-like, thus trembling, stirred, and overcome, gave me a strange shock. I could only entreat him to leave me then, and promise a reply on the morrow." Mr. Bronté, when consulted, was so displeased with the whole proceeding, and was so weak at this time, that Charlotte, fearing ill consequences to him, gave Mr. Nichols a refusal, whereupon he resigned his curacy and left the country. But a year or two after, seeing that Charlotte was unhappy, and fearing for her health, her father withdrew his opposition; Mr. Nichols was recalled, and the marriage finally took place. Mrs. Gaskell says:--