father was a ruined man, however, and by his increasing debts and his errors still deeper disgrace might be entailed upon all connected with him, and she could not think of allowing M. Roland to make his generosity to her a source of future mortification to himself. The more she manifested this elevation of soul, in which Jane was perfectly sincere, the more earnestly did M. Roland persist in his plea. At last Jane, influenced by his entreaties, consented that he should make proposals to her father. He wrote to M. Phlippon. In reply he received an insulting letter, containing a blunt refusal. M. Phlippon declared that he had no idea of having for a son-in-law a man of such rigid principles, who would ever be reproaching him for all his little errors. He also told his daughter that she would find in a man of such austere virtue not a companion and an equal, but a tyrant. Jane laid this refusal of her father deeply to heart, and resolved that if she could not marry the man of her choice, she would marry no one else. She wrote to M. Roland, requesting him to abandon his design, and not to expose himself to any further affronts. She then requested permission of her father to retire to a convent. The scanty income she had saved from her mother's property rendered it necessary for her to live with the utmost frugality. She determined to regulate her expenses in accordance with this small sum. Potatoes, rice, and beans, with a little salt, and occasionally the luxury of a little butter, were her only food. She allowed herself to leave the convent but twice a week: once, to call for an hour upon a relative, and once to visit her father, and look after his linen. She had a little room under the roof in the attic, where the pattering of the rain upon the tiles soothed and lulled her to sleep by night. She carefully secluded herself from association with the other inmates of the convent, receiving only a visit of an hour each evening from the much-loved Sister Agatha. Her time she devoted, with unremitting diligence to those literary avocations in which she found so much delight. The quiet and seclusion of this life had many charms for Jane. Indeed, a person with such resource for enjoyment within herself could never be very weary. Several months thus glided away in tranquillity. She occasionally walked in the garden, at hours when no one else was there. The resignation, which she had so long cultivated; the peaceful conscience she enjoyed, in view of duty performed; the elevation of spirit which enabled her to rise superior to misfortune; the methodical arrangement of time, which assigned to each hour its appropriate duty; the habit of close application, which riveted her attention to her studies; the highly cultivated taste and buoyantly winged imagination, which opened before her all the fairy realms of fancy, were treasures which gilded her cell and enriched her heart.