You do a good deed when you send me a letter, for you comfort a very desolate heart." One of the reasons for the silent estrangement between Madame Heger and Miss Bronte, in the second year of her residence at Brussels, is to be found in the fact, that the English Protestant's dislike of Romanism increased with her knowledge of it, and its effects upon those who professed it; and when occasion called for an expression of opinion from Charlotte Bronte, she was uncompromising truth.

Madame Heger, on the opposite side, was not merely a Roman Catholic, she was _devote_.

Not of a warm or impulsive temperament, she was naturally governed by her conscience, rather than by her affections; and her conscience was in the hands of her religious guides.

She considered any slight thrown upon her Church as blasphemy against the Holy Truth; and, though she was not given to open expression of her thoughts and feelings, yet her increasing coolness of behaviour showed how much her most cherished opinions had been wounded.

Thus, although there was never any explanation of Madame Heger's change of manner, this may be given as one great reason why, about this time, Charlotte was made painfully conscious of a silent estrangement between them; an estrangement of which, perhaps, the former was hardly aware.