w were thrown the love-letters
which fell at Lucy's feet sitting here.

Leaves from the overhanging boughs were plucked for us as souvenirs of
the place; then, reverently traversing once more the narrow alley so
often traced in weariness by Charlotte Bronte, we turned away. From the
garden we entered the long and spacious class-room of the first and
second divisions. A movable partition divides it across the middle when
the classes are in session; the floor is of bare boards cleanly scoured.
There are long ranges of desks and benches upon either side, and a lane
through the middle leads up to a raised platform at the end of the room,
where the instructor's chair and desk are placed.

How quickly our fancy peopled the place! On these front seats sat the
gay and indocile Belgian girls. There, "in the last row, in the
quietest corner, sat Emily and Charlotte side by side, so absorbed in
their studies as to be insensible to anything about them;" and at the
same desk, "in the farthest seat of the farthest row," sat Mademoiselle
Henri during Crimsworth's English lessons. Here Lucy's desk was rummaged
by M. Paul and the tell-tale odor of cigars left behind. Here, after
school-hours, Miss Bronte taught M. Heger English, he taught her French,
and M. Paul taught Lucy arithmetic and (incidentally) love. This was the
scene of their _tete-a-tetes_, of his earnest efforts to persuade her
into his faith in the Church of Rome, of their ludicrous supper of
biscuit and baked apples, and of his final violent outbreak with Madame
Beck, when she literally thrust herself between him and his love. From
this platform Crimsworth and Lucy Snowe and Charlotte Bronte herself had
given instruction to pupils whose insubordination had first to be
confronted and overcome. Here M. Paul and M. Heger gave lectures upon
literature, and Paul delivered his spiteful tirade against the English
on the morning of his _fete_-day. Upon this desk were heaped his
bouquets that morning; from its smooth surface poor Lucy dislodged and
fractured his cherished spectacles; and here, _now_, seated in Paul's
chair, at Paul's desk, we saw and were presented to Paul Emanuel
himself,--M. Heger.

It was something more than curiosity which made us alert to note the
appearance and manner of this man, who has been so nearly associated
with Miss Bronte in an intercourse which colored her whole subsequent
life and determined her life work, who has been made the hero of her
best