expected from her, the immediate object became to guard against any self-betrayal by Charlotte of her state of feeling to other members of the establishment, _and especially to M. Heger,_ whom Madame knew to be entirely innocent of any warm feeling resembling romantic sentiment for the homely but intelligent and zealous Englishwoman, whose progress under his instruction and capacity for appreciating good literature made her interesting to him as a pupil, whilst her meritorious courage in working to qualify herself to earn her own bread as an instructress herself claimed his approval--but whom he had not as yet suspected of a tragical passion for him. _And Madame Heger esteemed it most undesirable he should ever make the discovery._ And _therefore_ her immediate care was to guard against the occasion of such a revelation being given: and _therefore_ she endeavours to stop private lessons given by M. Heger to Charlotte, or English lessons given by her in return; _therefore_ too, she works to prevent any intercourse or meetings between the Professor and this particular pupil, outside of the presence of spectators and listeners, whose unsympathetic but attentive eyes and ears will impose restraint upon this extravagant Charlotte; so little under the control of good sense and respect for what is becoming. But now these tactics followed by Madame Heger, although from her own point of view they were as considerate and judicious as the interests of Charlotte, the Pensionnat, and 'convenience' permitted, and although no personal jealousy, vindictiveness nor malice entered into them, nevertheless _from Charlotte's point of view_ were intolerable and cruel; and the torments they inflicted upon her during the long seven months she lived through this incessant conflict with Madame Heger, under cover of an outer show of politeness on both sides, were precisely the same torments of cheated expectancy, suspense, thwarted hope, disappointments, that she has painted in _Villette_, and the _Professor_, as inflicted upon the hapless governesses Lucy Snowe and Frances Henri, by those two cruel, pitiless head-mistresses Madame Beck and Mlle. Zoraïde Reuter. Yes:--but there was all the difference in the world between the circumstances arranged by the authoress in her two novels, and the circumstances as a mischievous destiny had entangled them in the true history.