_The Professor_, Charlotte Brontë offered to Messrs. Aylott & Jones in April 1846, was not published till after her death. It is related to _Villette_ in something of the way, though not so verbally and intimately, that _Wuthering Heights_ is to _Jane Eyre_. The early chapters deal vaguely with a West Riding of Yorkshire town, but the scene quickly changes to Brussels. The Héger _pension_ is recognized as the original of the schools in both novels, but in _Villette_ the place Villette occasionally becomes London as Charlotte Brontë knew it on her visits. Mr. George Smith, the Brontë publisher, and his mother, are portrayed as the Brettons. Mr. Smith showed Charlotte Brontë the sights of London: the theatres, picture galleries, churches, etc.; and we have reflected in _Villette_ incidents associated with her seeing these places.[93] The reader will find a phase of Currer Bell in Paulina--Miss de Bassompierre, and a sympathetic phase of Mr. Brontë in her father, for after the deaths of Emily, Anne, and Branwell, Charlotte and her father were brought closer to each other. And like Mr. "Home" de Bassompierre, he had "no more daughters and no son."[94] Towards the close of _Villette_ we may find a phase of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, Charlotte Brontë's husband, in Dr. John Bretton, my previous remarks upon whom observe. It was shortly after the completion of _Villette_ Mr. Nicholls proposed successfully, but it would seem by the concluding chapters Miss Brontë expected this. The picture of the disappointment of the old father that his popular daughter would marry a plain character in life suggests to us the disappointment of the Rev. Patrick Brontë in regard to his daughter's marrying a curate. See Chapter XXXVII. Paulina, of course, is the feminine of Paul; and the original of M. Paul of this work we now well know. See footnote on page 120. The chronological sequences in Charlotte Brontë's novels are seldom carefully ordered: this should be remembered in reference to her record of events in her own life. "AGNES GREY" AND "THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL." _Agnes Grey_ contains simple and natural portrayals of governess life in the eighteen-forties; and the following _Wildfell Hall_, we may conjecture, is built from evolved incidents founded on hearsay and experience. Whether Miss Brontë had assisted Anne or not, it is certain _Wildfell Hall_ has something in common with Currer Bell's novels. The books connected with the name of Acton Bell, however, are not important as literature in the higher sense of the word; and though a member of Messrs. Smith & Elder remarked to Miss Brontë upon a similarity in the leading male characters of _Wildfell Hall_ to Rochester, interest in it is merely dependent upon its association with the greater Brontë works, and the book does not call for sedulous inquiry. THE HÉGER PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.