“I cannot bear even improvement at the expense of any one’s suffering but my own,” said Francis.

“I have been thinking so much about that sermon I heard at your church.  I do not know that the preacher brought out the particular point; but we are made such dependent beings, not only on God, but on each other, that we do indirectly profit by what we do not purchase by our own effort or pains.  We would not choose to have it so; but when Providence brings on ourselves or others sorrows we grieve for, we are right to draw from them all the good we can.  It is something if my uncle’s rather unjust will has given you property with a sobered sense of its privileges and a strong sense of its duties—­something to set against Elsie’s sufferings and mine.  And, besides, the loss of it has done me one great benefit.”

“Tell me what,” said Francis, eagerly.

“It is quite possible, though I cannot tell how probable, that I might have married a man to whom I am not well suited in any respect, and who was still less adapted to make me happy if I had not been disinherited.  I am thus frank with you, cousin Francis, for I should like to give you all the consolation I can.”

“And you have been deserted by a lover, as well as impoverished; and you ask me to take consolation from it.”

“No, no; nothing so bad as that.  I only explained matters to him, and we parted.  I am very glad of it.  Be you the same,” said Jane, looking frankly and cheerfully in her cousin’s face, and the cloud passed off it.

“Your sister has no affair of this kind?”

“No; nothing,” said Jane.

“And yet she seems to suffer more.”

“Not now; she is busy writing a volume of poems that is to make our fortune.  Dear Elsie!  I hope it may.”

“Poems—­well, she may succeed; but I have more hope of you than of her.”

“Because you know me better; but yet my efforts have all been very fruitless.  I am not a judge of poetry, though I like what Elsie writes.  I wished her to consent to my taking your opinion as to her verses, but she shrank from it with most unaccountable and, as I thought, unreasonable fear.  I wonder how she can bring her work before the public if she dreads one critic.”

“It is very natural, Jane.  Among the public there may be some to admire, and some to depreciate; but the one critic to whom the author submits his work may be of the latter class, and there seems to be no refuge from him.  It is curious to see the revelations of the inner self that some authors make to the world—­revelations that they would often shrink from making to their nearest friends.  They appeal to the few in the world who sympathise with them, and disregard the censure of all the rest.  And recollect that, though to you I am a friend, your sister has seen very little of me, and her first impression was exceedingly painful.  If you have told her I am a good judge of poetry, she will be all the more averse to submit her compositions to my criticism, for my opinion might bias yours, and yours is her greatest comfort and encouragement.  No one can wish her success more earnestly than I do.  But for yourself, what are your present intentions?”