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 Bronté taught M. Héger English, he taught her French,
and M. Paul taught Lucy arithmetic and (incidentally) love. This was the
scene of their _tête-à-têtes_, 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 Bronté herself had
given instruction to pupils whose insubordination had first to be
confronted and overcome. Here M. Paul and M. Héger gave lectures upon
literature, and Paul delivered his spiteful tirade against the English
on the morning of his _fête_-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. Héger.

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 Bronté in an intercourse which colored her whole subsequent
life and determined her life work, who has been made the hero of her
best novels and has even been deemed the hero of her own heart's