“Your heavy difficulties are lifted?”

“They are lifted; I breathe; I can act.  Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, be less selfish.  Now, Caroline, I can have a home that is truly mine, and seek a wife.  Will Caroline forget all I have made her suffer; forget my poor ambition; my sordid schemes?  Will she let me prove I can love faithfully?  Is Caroline mine?”

His hand was in hers still, and a gentle pressure answered him, “Caroline is yours.”

“I love you, Robert,” she said simply, and mutely offered a kiss, an offer of which he took unfair advantage.

* * * * *

Villette

      Villette is Brussels, and the experiences of the heroine,
     Lucy Snowe, in travelling thither and teaching there are based
     on the journeys and the life of Charlotte Bronte when she was
     a teacher in the Pensionnat Heger.  The principal characters in
     the story have been identified, more or less completely, with
     people whom the writer knew.  Paul Emanuel resembles M. Heger
     in many ways, and Madame Beck is a severe portrait of Madame
     Heger.  Dr. John Graham Bretton is a reflection of George
     Smith, Charlotte Bronte’s friendly publisher; and Mrs. Bretton
     is Mr. Smith’s mother.  Lucy Snowe is Jane Eyre, otherwise
     Charlotte Bronte, placed amidst different surroundings; and
     Ginevra Fanshawe was sketched from one of the pupils in
     Heger’s school.  The materials used in “Villette” were taken,
     in part, from an earlier work, “The Professor,” which suffered
     rejection nine times at the hands of publishers.  Though there
     was similarity of scene, and in some degree of subject, the
     two books are in no way identical.  “Villette” was published on
     January 24, 1853, and achieved an immediate success.  It was
     felt to have more movement and force than “Shirley,” and less
     of the crudeness that accompanied the strength of “Jane Eyre.”

I.—­Little Miss Caprice

My godmother lived in a handsome house in the ancient town of Bretton—­ the widow of Bretton—­and there I, Lucy Snowe, visited her about twice a year, and liked the visit well, for time flowed smoothly for me at her side, like the gliding of a full river through a verdant plain.

During one of my visits I was told that the little daughter of a distant relation of my godmother was coming to be my companion, and well do I remember the rainy night when, outside the opened door, we saw the servant Waren with a shawled bundle in his arms and a nurse-girl by his side.

“Put me down, please,” said a small voice.  “Take off the shawl; give it to Harriet, and she can put it away.”

The child who gave these orders was a tiny, neat little figure, delicate as wax, and like a mere doll, though she was six years of age.