ded to her, in
manuscript, all the sheets of his proposed publication, and she
returned them with the accompanying thoughts which their perusal
elicited. Now and then an expression of decorous endearment would
escape from each pen in the midst of philosophic discussions and
political speculations. It was several years after their acquaintance
commenced before M. Roland made an avowal of his attachment. Jane knew
very well the pride of the Roland family, and that her worldly
circumstances were such that, in their estimation, the connection
would not seem an advantageous one. She also was too proud to enter
into a family who might feel dishonored by the alliance. She therefore
frankly told him that she felt much honored by his addresses, and that
she esteemed him more highly than any other man she had ever met. She
assured him that she should be most happy to make him a full return
for his affection, but that her father was a ruined man, and that, by
his increasing debts and his errors of character, still deeper
disgrace might be entailed upon all connected with him; and she
therefore could not think of allowing M. Roland to make his generosity
to her a source of future mortification to himself.

This was not the spirit most likely to repel the philosophic lover.
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 censor
and a tyrant. Jane laid this refusal of her father deeply to heart,
and, resolving 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.

Her reception at the convent, where she was already held in such high
esteem, was cordial in the extreme. The scanty income she had saved
from her mother's property rendered it necessary for her to live with
the utmos