I ceased to be a sick-nurse to become steward of my estate.

Ah! this was the most tedious period of my life.
And yet I owe to it my only real happiness, for at that period I became acquainted with you, my Jane, and my heart, which had never yet learned to know a tenderer feeling, flew to you with all the impetuosity of a first passion.

Believe me, my Jane, when this long-missing nephew of my husband came and snatched away from me his hereditary estate, and, as the lord, took possession of it, then the thought that I must leave you and your father, the neighboring proprietor, was my only grief.

Men commiserated me on account of my lost property.

I thanked God that He had relieved me of this load, and I started for London, that I might at last live and feel, that I might learn to know real happiness or real misery." "And what did you find ?" "Misery, Jane, for I am queen." "Is that your sole unhappiness ?" "My only one, but it is great enough, for it condemns me to eternal anxiety, to eternal dissimulation.