It
was the sight of Laetitia standing up in the class-room and glancing
round with a semi-contemptuous air at all these Belgian girls which
attracted Charlotte Bronte to her. 'It was so very English,' Miss Bronte
laughingly remarked at a later period to her friend. There was one other
English girl at this time of sufficient age to be companionable; but with
Miss Maria Miller, whom Charlotte Bronte has depicted under the guise of
Ginevra Fanshawe, she had less in common. In later years Miss Miller
became Mrs. Robertson, the wife of an author in one form or another.

To Miss Wheelwright, and those of her sisters who are still living, the
descriptions of the Pensionnat Heger which are given in _Villette_ and
_The Professor_ are perfectly accurate. M. Heger, with his heavy black
moustache and his black hair, entering the class-room of an evening to
read to his pupils was a sufficiently familiar object, and his keen
intelligence amounting almost to genius had affected the Wheelwright
girls as forcibly as it had done the Brontes. Mme. Heger, again, for
ever peeping from behind doors and through the plate-glass partitions
which separate the passages from the school-rooms, was a constant source
of irritation to all the English pupils. This prying and spying is, it
is possible, more of a fine art with the school-mistresses of the
Continent than with those of our own land. In any case, Mme. Heger was
an accomplished spy, and in the midst of the most innocent work or
recreation the pupils would suddenly see a pair of eyes pierce the dusk
and disappear. This, and a hundred similar trifles, went to build up an
antipathy on both sides, which had, however, scarcely begun when
Charlotte and Emily were suddenly called home by their aunt's death in
October. A letter to Miss Nussey on her return sufficiently explains the
situation.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _November_ 10_th_, 1842.

'MY DEAR ELLEN,--I was not yet returned to England when your letter
arrived. We received the first news of aunt's illness, Wednesday,
Nov. 2nd. We decided to come home directly. Next morning a second
letter informed us of her death. We sailed from Antwerp on Sunday;
we travelled day and night and got home on Tuesday morning--and of
course the funeral and all was over. We shall see her no more. Papa
is pretty well. We found Anne at home; s