Miss Frost taught the Brontës

The Age interviews Julie Bishop, Australian Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training who, when asked about the teacher who inspired her, says:

Miss Frost. She was the senior English teacher at St Peter's. An austere woman who was able to instil in her students a love of literature, particularly English classics - the Bronte sisters, Austen, Hardy, Dickens. Her fiance was killed in World War II and she never married.

Apart from the tragic story, we find it an amusing coincidence that a Miss Frost taught the Brontës so passionately. Not because of the name itself, but because Frost was the original last name for Lucy Snowe in Villette. In the end, Charlotte decided against Frost and in favour of Snowe because while frost kills, snow simply hides.

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