"What a truthful, becalming lesson!" observed Alphonsine; "you will read to me every evening some passage of your _Imitation_, will you not? English sounds so sweetly to my ear when spoken by you. We will begin to-morrow evening, n'est ce pas?" Surely this is M. Héger and his sympathetic, depressed English teacher. There is in the opening chapter of _Miss Mary_ a long conversation regarding the departed governess Lagrange, and Madame de Morville (Madame Héger) avows she had been jealous of her, and that her harshness towards the governess had resulted in her abruptly leaving on a false plea of ill-health. Thus she says to M. de Morville:-- "I am speaking seriously to you of my foolish but most acute sufferings ... tandis que tu restais seul ici avec tes livres. You never suspected them;... I endeavoured to suppress them, to suffer no part of what I felt to transpire; for I must confess poor Lagrange was quite the lamb du bon Dieu, yet in spite of myself I sometimes broke out into fits of petulance and absurd irony, which wounded her. I saw it did by the sudden dejection of that excellent young person. But even this was not all." "Louise! is it you who speaks thus? You whose kind, benevolent heart I have so often admired." "Would you that I should avow something worse to you? What made me tolerate that poor Lagrange is that she was as ugly as the seven cardinal sins.... In fine, I cannot conceal from myself that the result of all this was that Mdlle. Lagrange gave up her situation on the plea of ill-health. ["Ah! she was not dismissed," said Mdlle. Reuter (Madame Héger) in _The Professor_, Chapter XVIII., when the Professor asked whether Mdlle. Frances Henri[65] (Miss Brontë) had left voluntarily. "... No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you."] Enfin, it faut bien me l'avouer, le résultat de tout ceci a été que Mademoiselle Lagrange a demandé à quitter la maison, sous prétexte de santé; véritable prétexte. For the rest I will do myself this justice, I would have suffered even to the end rather than have sent back that excellent girl." The Hégers were surprised at Miss Brontë's sudden resolution to leave them, but she is said to have had her father's failing eyesight as a reason. "I suffered much before I left Brussels," wrote Charlotte, and this was in mind, not body. "I have long concealed the greater part of these resentful sentiments from you," continues Madame de Morville, "notwithstanding the implicit trust reposed in you. I wish I alone had suffered by them. But no, poor Lagrange doubtless could not endure the thousand vexations and spites ('taquineries sournoises') to which she was subjected, and was thereby driven from our house."