Branwell described some of the characters in the novels, and talked much about his sisters, and especially about Charlotte, whose celebrity, he said, had already attracted more strangers to the village than had been known before; and Mr. Phillips gives the following account of the visit of one gentleman, an enthusiastic admirer of 'Jane Eyre,' whose somewhat eccentric personality he has veiled under the style and title of 'Leonidas Lyon, Professor of Greek in the London University':—
'One evening, as we sat together in the little parlour of the Inn, the landlord entered, and asked Branwell if he would see a gentleman who wanted to make his acquaintance.
'"He's a funny fellow," said the landlord; "and is somebody, I dare swear, with lots of money."
'As the landlord spoke, a squat little dapper fellow, with a white fur hat on his head, an umbrella under his arm, and a pair of blue spectacles on his nose, strutted into the room sans cérémonie. He approached the table in a very fussy and excited manner, exclaiming:
'"Landlord, bring us some brandy. I must have the pleasure of drinking a glass with the brother of that distinguished lady, who wrote the great book that made London blaze. Three glasses,—landlord—do you hear? And you, sir, are the great lady's brother, I presume? Professor Leonidas Lyon, sir, has the honour of introducing himself to your distinguished notice."
'Branwell responded, gravely:
'"Patrick Branwell Brontë, sir, has the honour of welcoming you to Haworth, and begging you to be seated."
'Whereupon the little man bowed and scraped, and laughed a good-humoured laugh all over his good, round face, and said it was an honour he could not have hoped for, to sit as a guest at the same board, as he might say, "with the brother, the very flesh and blood, of the great lady who wrote the book."
'Here the brandy and water came in, and the little man grew merrier still, and more communicative. He was a Professor of Greek at the London University, and, chancing to be at Smith's, the London publisher's, whose friend Williams was a "wonderful man of letters—a very wonderful man indeed!"—Williams asked the Professor if he had seen the book of the season—"the immense book," he called it—which was going to make one good reputation, and half a dozen fortunes. Mr. Williams praised it so highly that he (the Professor) grew wild about it, and asked where it could be got. Upon this, he threw a sovereign to pay for it, and ran home without his change, to read it. "It was prodigious, sir," he exclaimed.'
The Professor went on in high praise of 'Jane Eyre,' and told Branwell and Mr. Phillips that his bed-time was ten o'clock, but that, when reading the book, he had sat on, completely absorbed, until six o'clock in the morning, when the housemaid came. Then he had retired to his own room, but, instead of going to bed, had sat on the edge of it, until he finished the story at ten A.M. Branwell said this history of a Professor's reading of 'Jane Eyre' made him laugh 'as if he would split his sides.' And when he told Charlotte about it the next day, she laughed heartily, too, as did the other sisters, when she went up stairs to tell them, and their laughter moved Branwell to renewed merriment.