Jane was proud of the conquest she had made, and proud of her influence over a man so able, and so upright; but now she felt it was dangerous to see too much of him, and his parliamentary life had brought him into far more frequent contact with her now than ever before.  She had led him so far in the right direction, but now she feared for her own resolution; she knew she could not withstand many such scenes as she had just gone through, and she saw that there was great wisdom and propriety in her leaving the country that he lived in.  From her distant home across the ocean, she could hear of his labours and his triumphs, and, she hoped, after a time, of his happiness.  But while she reasoned with herself as to the propriety of leaving him, she felt all the bitterness of the lifelong separation.  She could no longer disguise the truth from herself—­he was as truly half of her as she was of him—­and she shivered at the thought of a life to be gone through in which she should never more see his face, or hear his voice.  It was as sad a night, and as sleepless, as that she had spent in her cousin’s house in Edinburgh, when all doors had seemed to be shut against her, except the faint chance of a sub-matronship in a lunatic asylum.  Now, two doors were open to her—­one to a life of toil and dependence for herself and probably a happy life for Elsie, at the antipodes; and the other, a life of love with the man who had all her heart, and who deserved it all, with a dependent life for Elsie.  Even though her own hand had closed the door, she could not help lingering at the threshold, and grieving that she was shut out from the only paradise she cared for.

So the good ship sailed next week, bearing Jane from the man who loved her, and whom she loved, and Elsie and Miss Harriett Phillips towards the man whom they both thought loved them.

Volume III.

Chapter I.

Mr. Brandon’s Second Proposal To Elsie, And Its Fate

On Mr. Brandon’s arrival at Melbourne after a longer voyage than he had expected in a ship with such a high character as the one he sailed in, he hurried up to Barragong, and was much gratified to find things there did not look so badly as he had been led to expect.  It was his overseer’s want of confidence in himself that had made him exaggerate everything that was going wrong, or was likely to go wrong.  In fact Mr. Phillips’s affairs were suffering much more from the want of the master’s eye than his; but Dr. Grant had a better opinion of his own management, and wrote more cheerful accounts.  Brandon regretted that Powell had left his employment, for if he had been in charge of Barragong there might have been three more happy months in England for his master.