artist! That seemed to them full of perils known and unknown. When they saw, however, that her heart was set upon it, they yielded and gave her every advantage possible. At times she taught some of the advanced drawing in the school; but I think her teaching was intermittent, she was so often out of town.

I have mentioned her "atelier at the bottom of the garden. It was a choice spot at least I think it was, but a girl who has never even seen a private studio before is enchanted with the unusualness of everything there, and imagines it is choice. The bits of bronze and marble and faïence and tapestry, the halffinished pictures, and all the artistic litter that gathers in a painter's room, were there, as well as books and a bird. She used to invite me in occasionally for an hour or 80. Sometimes she would go. on painting, when I enjoyed a speaking silence; at other times she would sit still, talking and smoking, and offering me some little liqueur. Her ideas were quite out of the common-her expression also. In that she resembled her father, and was sometimes quite as startling. We talked -no, she talked, half in French and half in English, about anything and every thing except the Brontës! None of the sisters ever mentioned them to me. They must have been mere children-if Mdlle. Louise were born at all-in their day, so could

not remember them personally. Doubtless also they felt, like Monsieur Héger, that their mother had been terribly maligned. I think it showed great wisdom on their part not to speak on the subject to English people.

Mdlle. Louise liked to talk about books, French and English, and knew Dickens and Tennyson well, and often compared their ideas with those of French writers. She said English voices sang like birds," but German voices "barked like dogs"; Ireland was "too green to paint"; she herself was "too ugly to be photographed." She had numerous friends and admirers, and when some one forced her to promise to have her photograph taken she kept her word, but in one position she had turned her back to the camera, and in the other she had an umbrella up, completely hiding her face!

was

Her speaking voice rather deep and particularly pleasant, with a ripple in it, and she sang exquisitelysometimes in public for charity

in a strong, sweet contralto, to her own accompaniment.

As well as her "atelier" in the Rue d'Isabelle she also had one at La Hulpe in the country a few miles out of Brussels, in the direction of Waterloo. She took me there once for a few days, and how happy I was! The happiness is all I remember, for nothing comes back to my mind about this little visit except some walks through sandy country, and our playing with the curly shavings

that came out of her wood basket, setting them on fire and holding them as long as possible before relinquishing them to the pile in the stove. She loved watching fire and flames.

Her paintings then were principally nature studies, pictures of level fields with winding sandy paths through them and a few trees,-just the kind that an untutored girl would not appreciate. I had got to know the pictures in the Musée in Brussels, where I was fascinated in a crude way by the genre and other paintings, so these clever studies of a different kind did not at all appeal to me, though I have little doubt that if I saw her pictures to-day, after having visited many modern London academies and Paris salons, and less modern German and Italian galleries, I should like them very much. When she saw, which she did immediately, that I could not appreciate her work, she was not sorry or disappointed, nor did she try to teach me as a schoolmistress might have done, but simply taking it for granted that a young girl could not comprehend such work, she went on being just as kind and as interesting as ever. It is on points like these that I think most men are so good to boys and most women to girls. I believe it is Maurice Maeterlinck who says somewhere that what makes a joy of life is intellectual intercourse with an artist. I fully endorse the statement; and how an artist not merely puts up with

a plain prosaic person, but actually seeks him out and makes a friend of him, always seems to me very wonderful. Do they, perhaps, in some way supply each other's wants?

While I was there Mdlle. Louise had two pictures accepted by the Paris Salon. What joy there was in her circle! Then off she went to Paris. When she came back she told me about various artists and notable people whom she had met, but they were only names to me, so I promptly forgot all of them but one, that of the poet François Coppée. She had very much enjoyed a meeting with him. After hearing her sing somewhere, and being told that she set songs to music herself, he offered her permission to use any of his poems that she liked, and gave her a little document to that effect. This she showed me, and appeared much gratified with such a graceful token of his appreciation.

Such a gifted, interesting, kind woman naturally had a crowd of admirers in the big world outside the narrowing walls of a school, but inside those walls I was her frankest admirer, so that my that my companions speaking to me about her used to call her "ta Louise." She was tall and dark, and had large beautiful hands, and though they said her face was plain I never noticed that, for it was alight with intellect, vivacity, charm, and I thought every hour spent in her company a little bit of heaven.

The Mesdemoiselles Hégers' staff consisted of seven or eight resident mistresses, including one German, one English, and two or three Parisians, with about the same number of visiting teachers, men and women, some of whom were not uninteresting. One of them I shall always remember, she was so good to me. I thought her old then, but of course she was not. Dear Mdlle. Hortense, how literal she was and how conscientious! Her name was Hortense De L―; sometimes however we wrote it with a small d, which would have pleased most people, but she always took pains on such occasions to say, "Mais il ne faut pas écrire mon nom avec un petit d, nous n'avons qu'un grand." She had been there for many years, and her character and work were much appreciated by Mdlle. Maria Héger.

Another, too, Mdlle. G., was very kind to me, personally conducting me in the holidays to her Paris, and showing me her lions in the most delightful way. She was very particular about her charge, and more than once made me change my seat at meals in restaurants because of "oet impertinent," who was generally so far away that I had not even seen him-but she had with her beautiful big brown eyes. This lady had been for some time governess to the Belgian Princesses, the daughters of King Leopold II., and she told us occasionally various little tales about those Royal young people, which

showed they were very like other less aristocratic young people-if not more so!

Then there were the girls. There were between sixty and seventy boarders, mostly Belgians, but with a sprinkling of Germans and Flemish. English girls were not encouraged, but there were a few English and American day-girls, whose parents were living in Brussels permanently or temporarily. One of these girls, the daughter of an army officer and niece of an archbishop, chatting to me one day, said: "This is a funny school; there are all kinds of girls here, from beggars to princesses." Well, there were no beggars-in fact, I believe most of the girls were well off, but there were rich shopkeepers' daughters; nor were there princesses, but quite a number of girls had a right to the precious little d so scrupulously eschewed by Mdlle. Hortense, and on the day for writing home letters I used to see various envelopes addressed to Madame la Baronne de Telle et Telle, or to Monsieur le Baron de So and So.

I was surprised to find that a great many of the boarders lived in Brussels. They were sent to boarding-school to be trained, and to save their parents the trouble of sending and fetching them twice or four times a-day, for of course none of the girls ever came unescorted. I have often seen the fathers or mothers of daygirls stand at the top of the now famous flight of steps just opposite, as described in Villette,' and wave to their

daughters till the school door opened and they disappeared within.

The girls always wore a uniform out of doors. Their happiest days were Sunday and Thursday, for those were the jours de salon, which meant that their parents, or intimate friends authorised by their parents, could come to visit them between certain hours in the afternoon. Sunday night also was always given up to dancing, a weekly joy to most of the girls.

These visits were paid in the pretty galérie that I have mentioned. Window-curtains that were easy to hang up and take down, furniture covers that could be quickly removed, were put on by deft servants on those days, rugs were scattered on the tesselated floor, and cushioned chairs were placed in little groups, so that la galérie, from being the useful school "hall," where dancing, gymnastic, and singing classes and all kinds of recreation took place, was transformed into a large handsome drawing-room.

When visitors arrived asking to see a certain girl, one servant showed them into the gallery by one door, while another hurried away to the schoolroom and called out "Mademoiselle une Telle, au salon," upon which the joyous expectant girl put aside her work and entered the salon at the opposite end from her visitors. She had to pause a moment, looking up the long room to see where her friends had established themselves.

Having found their location, she had then probably to pass several little parties before reaching them. This was somewhat of a trial for many shy girls, for they were obliged to bow to each group they passed: the joy, however, of arrival at the desired haven soon made them forget the trying passage. Uniform was worn on these days too, as a discord in colours would have got on the nerves of the household. A pretty simple black dress, with optional blue or white ribbons at the neck and on the hair, was worn in winter, and black and white in summer. A mistress sat in the room, doing needlework or writing letters at a little table.

It

At one end of this galérie there was a permanent platform, two or three steps above the level of the floor, and of the same stone and design. had a glass door in the middle of the back and one at each end, and so was a perfect stage for the little dramas that were acted from time to time.

Prayers were read in the oratoire every morning before breakfast, and again just before going to bed. Jewesses and Protestants did not go in, but read their own prayers in a room near by. In this connection, I think it speaks very highly for the peace and goodwill of the household when I tell how deeply touched I felt on hearing that the cook, a simple, uneducated Flemish woman, who only just knew me, prayed for me every morning at a very early mass she

used to attend. She thought it a terrible pity that such a "gentille demoiselle" should be a Protestant! I have ever since considered Mélanie's prayers as one of my most cherished memories.

Breakfast seems to have been the same as in Charlotte Brontë's day, and consisted of the usual coffee, most delicious pistolets, or fresh buns, and tartines au beurre and au sirop. I always thought tartines was too grand a name for just two simple thin slices of bread and butter, or bread and syrup, folded together-but they were very good.

Dinner was in the middle of the day, and there was a lighter supper about 7 or 7.30. At these meals most girls had their own bottles of wine, and every girl owned a silver cup, which was used instead of a glass at table. It was a daily interest to see whose cup one had. The name was on each. At four o'clock there was a goûter, or lunch, consisting of beer or coffee and the nice pistolets again. One never got tired of those. This was the moment when private provisions of chocolate were allowed to be eaten.

After each meal, on leaving the dining-room, or réfectoire as it was called, each girl had to turn at the door and bow to the room in general. It was a grievance among some of the girls that this bow was no ordinary one, but une vraie révérence en arrière, a regular curtsey. I used to wonder if it were perhaps an initial preparation for a possible post at Court!

Such was life-surface life, anyhow in the Pensionnat Héger, probably not very different from that in the Brontës' days-but who thought of them then? Only Monsieur Héger and I, and that rarely, and for but a few moments at a time. Sometimes at twilight on a summer evening in the peartree allée I tried to realise that Charlotte and Emily had walked there just as we simple people were doing, but I cannot truthfully say that I did realise it. One cannot force these things, and in youth the actualities of a happy present and the dreams of a golden future are much too urgent to leave time for evoking the spirit of the past.

That comes later.

JANET HARPER.