It would seem by Charlotte's statement in _Jane Eyre_ that Tabitha Aykroyd, as "Bessie," was responsible for the origin of this little superstition; and it is instructive to find the child-apparition as an ill-omen in connection with Tabitha Aykroyd as Mrs. Dean in _Wuthering Heights_. I have shown John Reed and Hindley Earnshaw represent Branwell Brontë; we may notice, therefore, that the child-apparition is given equally in _Wuthering Heights_ and in _Jane Eyre_ as coming before disaster or disgrace to Branwell Brontë. _Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._ Chapter XI. Chapter XXI. Tabitha Aykroyd's child-apparition Tabitha Aykroyd's child-apparition as a token of calamity to Branwell as a token of calamity to Branwell Brontë. Brontë. -------- -------- Says Mrs. Dean [Tabitha]: "I Presentiments are strange came to a stone which serves as things! ... and so are signs.... a guide-post to ... the Heights Sympathies I believe exist (for and the village.... Hindley instance, between far-distant [Branwell Brontë] and I held it ... wholly estranged relatives). a favourite spot twenty years When I was a ... girl I heard before, ... and ... it appeared Bessie [Tabitha Aykroyd] say that I beheld my ... playmate that to dream of children was a seated on the ... turf, ... his sure sign of trouble.... During little hand scooping out the the last week scarcely a night earth."[27] had gone ... that had not brought ... the dream of an "Poor Hindley!" [Branwell infant which I ... watched Brontë] I exclaimed playing with daisies on a lawn involuntarily. I started--my or ... dabbling its hands in bodily eye was cheated in the running water.[27] It was a belief that the child lifted its wailing child this night, ... a face and stared straight into laughing one the next, ... but mine! It vanished in a whatever mood the apparition twinkling; but immediately I evinced ... it failed not ... to felt an irresistible yearning to meet me.... I grew nervous.... be at the Heights. Superstition It was from companionship with urged me to comply with this this baby-phantom I had been impulse--"Suppose he were dead! roused ... when I heard the cry: ... supposing it were a sign of and on the ... day following ... death!" I found a man [Bessie's husband] waiting for me; ... he was ... in deep mourning, and the hat in his hand was surrounded with a crape band.