In consequence of his mode of doing business, considerable
annoyance was occasioned both to Miss Bronte and to them. The
circumstances, as detailed in a letter of hers to a friend in New
Zealand, were these:--One morning, at the beginning of July, a
communication was received at the Parsonage from Messrs. Smith
and Elder, which disturbed its quiet inmates not a little, as,
though the matter brought under their notice was merely referred
to as one which affected their literary reputation, they
conceived it to have a bearing likewise upon their character.
"Jane Eyre" had had a great run in America, and a publisher there
had consequently bid high for early sheets of the next work by
"Currer Bell." These Messrs. Smith and Elder had promised to let
him have. He was therefore greatly astonished, and not well
pleased, to learn that a similar agreement had been entered into
with another American house, and that the new tale was very
shortly to appear. It turned out, upon inquiry, that the mistake
had originated in Acton and Ellis Bell's publisher having assured
this American house that, to the best of his belief, "Jane Eyre",
"Wuthering Heights", and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (which he
pronounced superior to either of the other two) were all written
by the same author.

Though Messrs. Smith and Elder distinctly stated in their letter
that they did not share in such "belief," the sisters were
impatient till they had shown its utter groundlessness, and set
themselves perfectly straight. With rapid decision, they resolved
that Charlotte and Anne should start, for London, that very day,
in order to prove their separate identity to Messrs. Smith and
Elder, and demand from the credulous publisher his reasons for a
"belief" so directly at variance with an assurance which had