Good evening. Welcome to the Just Sleep podcast. I'm Tasia, your host. Every week, I will read you

an old story to help you relax, put the stressful day behind you, and drift off to sleep.

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Tonight, I will be reading Anne Brontees, the tenant of Wild Fell Hall.

So lie down, close your eyes, and let me read you a story.

Chapter 1 July 22, 1848.

You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.

My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer, and I, by his expressed desire,

succeeded him in the same quiet occupation, not very willingly, for ambition urged me to

hire aims, and self-conceit assured me that, in disregarding its voice, I was burying my

talent in the earth and hiding my light under a bushel. My mother had done her utmost

to persuade me that I was capable of great achievements, but my father, who thought ambition was

the surest road to ruin, and change, but another word for destruction, would listen to no

scheme for bettering either my own condition or that of my fellow mortals. He assured me it was all rubbish and exhorted me

with his dying breath to continue, in the good old way, to follow his footsteps and those of his

father before him, and let my highest ambition be to walk honestly through the world,

looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and to transmit the paternal acres to my children

in at least as flourishing a condition as he left them to me. Well, an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful members of society.

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