l write my application to
the directors of the ---- Asylum; tomorrow I will be on my way to Cross
Hall. I cannot, after such a day as this, collect my thoughts
sufficiently in a strange house, among strangers, to do myself justice
in my application, nor can I bear to let my cousin know that his
brotherly kindness, and my sisterly confidence, may be misunderstood
and misinterpreted. I have no mother, and no adviser. I had feared that
perhaps the direct or indirect assistance of food and lodging for two
days might peril my cousin's inheritance,--though Miss Thomson thought
there was no danger of that either,--but I never imagined that any one
would think the less of me for accepting it. If you do not tell him, he
need never know it; for I am sure it was the last idea he could have
entertained."

What sad earnest eyes Jane turned on Mrs. Rennie!--she could not help
being touched with her expression and her appeal. A vision of her own
Eliza--without friends--without a mother--doing something as
ill-advised, and feeling very acutely when a stranger told her of it,
gave a distinctness to Jane's present suffering that, without that
little effort of imagination, she could not have realized. Besides, she
had a great wish to think highly of Mr. Hogarth, and to please him; and
the certainty that he would be extremely pained and, perhaps, offended
by her suggestion that he had compromised his cousin's position by his
good-natured invitation, had its influence.

"What you say is very reasonable, Miss Melville, but you forget that
to-morrow is Sunday. You would not travel on the Sabbath, I hope?"

"I seem to have forgotten the days of the week in this terrible whirl,"
said Jane. "I would rather not travel on Sunday, but this seems a case
of necessity."

"Not so," said Mrs. Rennie, kindly. "Come and go to church with us
to-morrow forenoon, and dine with us; if you feel then that you would
prefer to stay here, you can easily manage to do so without making your
cousin suspect anything. If you still are anxious to go home, you can
do that on Monday morning; but I fancy Tuesday is quite early enough to
send in your application."

"Thank you, Mrs. Rennie," said Jane. "I am very much obliged to you
indeed for your kindness, and I think I will avail myself of it; but
to-night--to-night--I must have some quiet and solitude."

"I have been somehow or other separated from you all the evening," said
Francis, as they were on their way home