urnal_ in 1850; in volume form in
Paris, 1851. It is possible, but not likely, that Eugene Sue may have
seen the manuscript of _The Professor_ when it was "going the round".]

Then there is that other "sensational discovery" of the Heger portrait,
that little drawing (now in the National Portrait Gallery) of Charlotte
Bronte in curls, wearing a green gown, and reading _Shirley_. It is
signed Paul Heger, 1850, the year of _Shirley's_ publication, and the
year in which Charlotte sat to Richmond for her portrait. There are two
inscriptions on the back: "The Wearin' of the Green; First since Emily's
death"; and below: "This drawing is by P. Heger, done from life in
1850." The handwriting gives no clue.

Mr. Malham-Dembleby attaches immense importance to this green gown,
which he "identifies" with the pink one worn by Lucy in _Villette_. He
says that Lady Ritchie told him that Charlotte wore a green gown at the
dinner-party Thackeray gave for her in June, 1850; and when the green
gown turns out after all to be a white one with a green pattern on it,
it is all one to Mr. Malham-Dembleby. So much for the green gown. Still,
gown or no gown, the portrait _may_ be genuine. Mr. Malham-Dembleby says
that it is drawn on the same paper as that used in Mr. George Smith's
house, where Charlotte was staying in June 1850, and he argues that
Charlotte and M. Heger met in London that year, and that he then drew
this portrait of her from the life. True, the portrait is a very
creditable performance for an amateur; true, M. Heger's children
maintained that their father did not draw, and there is no earthly
evidence that he did; true, we have nothing but one person's report of
another person's (a collector's) statement that he had obtained the
portrait from the Heger family, a statement at variance with the
evidence of the Heger family itself. But granted that the children of M.
Heger were mistaken as to their father's gift, and that he did draw this
portrait of Charlotte Bronte from Charlotte herself in London in 1850,
I cannot see that it matters a straw or helps us to the assumption of
the great tragic passion which is the main support of Mr.
Malham-Dembleby's amazing fabrication.

APPENDIX II

Leyland's theory is that Branwell Bronte wrote the first seventeen
chapters of _Wuthering Heights_. It has very little beyond Leyland's
passionate conviction to support it. There is a passage in a letter of
Branwell's to Leyland, the scu