But fate had chosen her darkest hues in which to weave the warp and woof of their lives. The wild dissipations and wilder talk of their brother Branwell clouded the imaginations of his sisters, and in a short time death was a constant presence in their midst. In September, 1848, Branwell died at the age of thirty; in less than three months, Emily died at the age of twenty-nine; and in five-months, Anne died at the age of twenty-seven; and Charlotte, the eldest, was left alone with her father. During the remaining six years of her life, her compensation for her loss of companionship was her writing. Not long after the death of her sisters, Mr. Nicholls proposed to her; was refused; proposed again and was accepted; then came the separation caused by Mr. Brontë's hostility to the marriage; then the marriage in the church under whose pavement so many members of her family were buried, grim attendants of her wedding; then the nine short months of married life; then the death of the last of the Brontë sisters at the age of thirty-nine. Mr. Brontë outlived her only six years, but he was the last of his family. Six children had been born to Patrick Brontë, not one survived him. Forty years had eliminated a family which yet lives through the imaginative powers of the three daughters who reached years of maturity. Of the three sisters, the least is known of Emily, and her one novel, _Wuthering Heights_, reveals nothing of herself. Not one of the characters thought or felt as did the quiet, retiring author. Yet so great was her dramatic power that her brother Branwell was credited with the book, as it was deemed impossible for a woman to have conceived the character of Heathcliff. And yet this arch-fiend of literature was created by the daughter of a country vicar, whose only journeys from home had been to schools, either as pupil or governess. Charlotte Brontë has thrown but little light upon her sister's character. She says that she loved animals and the moors, but was cold toward people and repelled any attempt to win her confidence. The author of _Jane Eyre_ seems neither to have understood Emily's nature nor her genius. Yet we are told that Emily was constantly seen with her arms around the gentle Anne, and that they were inseparable companions. If Anne Brontë could have lived longer, she would have thrown much light upon the character of the author of _Wuthering Heights_. But now, as we read of her brief life and her one novel, she seems to belong to the great dramatists rather than to the novelists, to the poets who live apart from the world and commune only with the people of their own creating. _Wuthering Heights_ stands alone in the history of prose fiction. It belongs to the wild region of romanticism, but it imitates no book, and has never been copied. No incident, no character, no description, can be traced to the influence of any other book, but the atmosphere is that of the West Riding of Yorkshire.