“Now, what do you think of all this, Jane?”

“I am a little staggered, as you were,” said she.  “I wish you had heard more or less—­it bewilders me.”

“Should I then follow this advice so strangely given?”

“I think the advice exactly corresponds with what you had resolved to do at any rate.  It need not influence you either one way or the other.  You asked my advice the other day, but neither from me nor from a departed spirit should you accept of or follow any advice which appears to your own soul not to be good.  You cannot shift off your personal responsibility.  As I said, it is your affair, not mine; and I feel sorry that consideration for me, and for my generous employer, has weighed so much with you that you scarcely give the claims of your mother their just due.”

“And the spirit said she was my mother, but at the same time advised, or rather commanded me to have nothing to do with her.  I do not wish to have anything to do with her.  What is it to be grateful for—­such a loveless, joyless life as mine has been—­thwarted even now in my dearest hopes and wishes.”

“Francis,” said Jane, “you have a great deal to be thankful for, and so have I. With all the sufferings of the past year, I would not have been without it for the world.  We have both learned much, both from circumstances and from each other.”

“Jane, I am weary of all this talk about progress and perfection.  I am hungering for happiness, as I told this strange interlocutor last night,” said Francis, earnestly.

“And you will attain to it, Francis! but do not set your heart on what it is not right, or wise, or expedient for you to obtain.  And you cannot look me in the face and say that, if one thing is denied, you have not many sources of happiness.”

Jane looked at him with her sisterly eyes, feeling the pain she was giving, but determined not to show that she had any personal regret.  It was very kind, but it was very discouraging.  She felt for him like a sister—­and nothing more.

“If I have any eyes,” said Francis, trying violently to change the subject, “Brandon is still an admirer of your sister’s.  What in the world keeps him from declaring himself?  Why does he not offer her all he has, and all he may hope to gain?  He cares no more for Miss Phillips than I do, and she would never consent to accompany him to Australia.  And Elsie looks so pretty and so sad, she needs a protector; she would be grateful to him; she cannot stand alone, as you do; and she knows she makes your position here much more difficult.”

“The truth is, Elsie refused him, and it is difficult for a man to make a second offer when he has such slight opportunities of seeing her, even if he has not made a transfer of his affections.”

“I would make an opportunity—­I would write—­I would ask point-blank to see her—­I would speak to you about it, if I were in his place.  It is cowardly in Brandon.”