“I have been somehow or other separated from you all the evening,” said Francis, as they were on their way home.  “Have you enjoyed it at all?  It was hard for you to have to see so many strangers after so trying a day.”

“Rather hard,” said Jane, with quivering lips.  “Life altogether is much harder than I had imagined it to be.  I want Elsie very much to-night; but I will see her as soon as I can possibly get home.”

“You do not mean to go so soon? you have done nothing satisfactory as yet.  We must make attempts in some other direction.”

“I have made up my mind,” said Jane; “I will apply for the situation I despised this morning.  People outside of asylums seem to be as mad and more cruel.  I will write my application to-night, and it will go by the first post.”

“Do not be so precipitate; there is no need to apply before Tuesday, and I believe even Wednesday would do.  Spend the intervening days in town; something suitable may be advertised in newspapers.  You have not yet applied at any registry offices.  You said Rome was not built in a day, yet a day’s failure makes you despair.  Do not lose heart all at once, my dear cousin.  Though I never had anything half so hard to bear or to anticipate as you have now, I have had my troubles, and have got over them, as you will in the end.”

The tone of Francis’ voice gave Jane a little courage; but she was resolute in writing out her application before she went to bed.  It was beautifully written and clearly expressed.  She asserted her qualifications with firmness, and yet with modesty, and gave satisfactory references to prove her own statements.  Of all the applicants, she was the youngest; but Francis was sure that her letter would be the best of the fifty.

Though Jane thought this decisive step would set her mind at rest, sleep was impossible to her after such excitement, fatigue, and disappointment; and the solitude she had longed for only gave her leave to turn over all the painful circumstances of her position without let or hindrance.  Never had she felt so bitterly towards her uncle.  In vain did she try to recall his past kindness to soften her heart towards him; for all pleasant memories only deepened the gloom of her present friendless, hopeless poverty; and the prospect of her inevitable separation from Elsie, which had never been distinctly apprehended before, was the saddest of all the thoughts that haunted the night watches.

Francis had been invited with Jane to spend the day with the Rennies, and the cousins went to church with the family.  Jane heard none of the sermon nor of the service generally.  She had not been in the habit of paying much attention at church, and there was nothing at all striking or impressive in the preacher’s voice or manner, or in the substance of his discourse, to arrest a languid or preoccupied listener.  Jane was thinking about the Asylum, and about how much or how little it needed to make people mad—­if