visited the _pensionnat_ in quest of material for her biography of
Charlotte, and received all the aid M. Héger could afford: the
information thus obtained has, for the most part, we were told, been
fairly used. Miss Bronté's letters from Brussels, so freely quoted in
Mrs. Gaskell's "Life," were addressed to Miss Ellen Nussy, a familiar
friend of Charlotte's, whose signature we saw in the register at Haworth
Church as witness to Miss Bronté's marriage. The Hégers had no suspicion
that she had been so unhappy with them as these letters indicate, and
she had assigned a totally different reason for her sudden return to
England. She had been introduced to Madame Héger by Mrs. Jenkins, wife
of the then chaplain of the British Embassy at the Court of Belgium; she
had frequently visited that lady and other friends in Brussels,--among
them Mary and Martha Taylor and their relatives, and the family of a
Dr. ---- (_not_ Dr. John),--and therefore her life here need not
have been so lonely and desolate as it has been made to appear.

The Hégers usually have a few English pupils in the school, but have
never had an American.

Some American tourists had before called to look at the garden, but the
family are not pleased by the notoriety with which Miss Bronté has
invested it. However, Mademoiselle Héger kindly offered to conduct us
over any portion of the establishment we might care to see, and led the
way along the corridor, past the class-rooms and the _réfectoire_ on the
right, to the narrow, high-walled garden. We found it smaller than in
the time when Miss Bronté loitered here in weariness and solitude.
Mademoiselle Héger explained that, while the width remains the same, the
erection of class-rooms for the day-pupils has diminished the length by
some yards. Tall houses surround and shut it in on either side, making
it close and sombre, and the noises of the great city all about it