d the garden."

"Then this _is_ the school where she was for so long a time?" we burst
out simultaneously, forgetting our little prepared speeches.

"Yes, _mesdemoiselles_; I also was a pupil at that time," was the
reply. We viewed the dark little woman with sudden awe.

"But tell us," we said, crowding around her, "was she like--like--" We
could think of no comparison that would do justice to the subject.

The reply was a shrug of the shoulders, and, "She was just a quiet
little thing, in no way remarkable. I am sure," she added, "we did not
think her a genius; and indeed, though I have read her books, I can see
nothing in them to admire or praise so highly!"

"But they are _so_ wonderful!" ventured one of our number, gushingly.

"They are very untrue," she replied, while something like a spark shot
from the dark eyes.

O, shades of departed story-tellers, is it thus ye are to be judged?

"Madame Heger," she went on, "who still has charge of the school, is a
most excellent lady, and not at all the person described as 'Madame
Beck.'"

"And M. Paul Emmanuel,--Lucy Snow's teacher-lover,"--we ventured to
suggest with some timidity.

"Is Madame Heger's husband, and was at that time," she replied, with a
little angry toss of the head. After this terrible revelation there was
nothing more to be said.

She led the way through a narrow passage, and opening a door at the end,
we stepped into the garden. We had passed the class-rooms on our
right--where, "on the last row, in the quietest corner," Charlotte and
Emily used to sit. We could almost see the pale faces, the shy figures
bending over the desk in the gathering dusk.

The garden is less spacious than it was in Charlotte's time, new
class-rooms having been added, which cut off something from its length.
But the whole place was strangely familiar and pleasant to our eyes.
Shut in by surrounding houses, more than one window overlooks its narrow
space. Down its length upon one side extends the shaded walk, the
"_allee defendue_," which Charlotte paced alone so many weary hours,
when Emily had returned to England. Parallel to this is the row of giant
pear trees,--huge, misshapen, gnarled,--that bore no fruit to us but
associations vivid as memories. From behind these, in the summer
twilight, the ghost of _Villette_ was wont to steal, and buried at the
foot of "Methuselah," the oldest, we knew poor Lucy's love-letters were
hidden to-day. A seat here and there, a fe