ling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It
is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes
at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so
patient and compliant on my part."

At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request me to
stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she
said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long
she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks,
emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with any
one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer
notes of condolence.

One morning she told me I was at liberty. "And," she added, "I am
obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is
some difference between living with such an one as you and with
Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one.
To-morrow," she continued, "I set out for the Continent. I shall take up
my abode in a religious house near Lisle--a nunnery you would call it;
there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time
to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study
of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it
is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently
and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the
veil."

I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade
her from it. "The vocation will fit you to a hair," I thought: "much
good may it do you!"

When we parted, she said: "Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well:
you have some sense."

I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you
have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French
convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don't
much care."

"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each went our
separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her
sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an
advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza
actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where
she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her
fortune.

How people feel when they are returning home from an ab