“And for yourself, you can see no prospect?”

“It seems impossible to get up the classes that I hoped for.  I think I must take to Mrs. Dunn’s and the dressmaking, for we cannot go on as we are doing.”

“Ah!  Jane, my cup of prosperity has very many bitter drops in it.”

“And mine of adversity has much that is salutary and even sweet in it.  Do not think me so very unhappy.  If any one had told me beforehand of these months that I have passed since my uncle’s death, I should have thought them absolutely intolerable, and would have preferred death.  But there is no human lot without its mitigations and ameliorations.  God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.  I am not happy, perhaps; but I am not miserable.  I have not to live with people whom I despise, for there never was a more estimable woman than Peggy Walker, or more promising children than her nephews and nieces.  You cannot fancy what interest I feel in Tom, and how I am ambitious for him.  He will make a figure in the world, and I will help him to do so.  We women have no career for ourselves, and we must find room for ambition somewhere.  I have no brother and no husband, and I find myself building castles in the air for Tom Lowrie and for you, Francis; for you are proving yourself the good master, the conscientious steward of the bounties of Providence that I hoped you would be; and is that nothing to be glad of?  I know I look sad, but do not fancy me always in this mood; if you saw me in the evenings with Tom, and Nancy, and Jamie, and Jessie, and Willie, you would see how cheerful I can be.  Here, I am reminded too painfully of what I have lost; there, I feel that I have gained somewhat.”

“You want to relieve my mind, my generous cousin, by making the best of your very hard lot.”

“Every lot has its best side,” said Jane, “and it is only by looking steadily at it that one can obtain courage to bear the worst.  I see this in visiting the very poor people whom I wrote to you about.  Some people are querulous in comparative comfort; others have the most astonishing powers of cheerful endurance.  I have learned upon how very little the human soul can be kept in working order from a poor rheumatic and bed-ridden old woman, who is so grateful for the use of one hand while she is helpless otherwise, and who has had a very bad husband, and several very careless and cold-hearted children; but she has one son who comes to see her regularly once every three months, and brings her the scanty pittance on which she subsists; and surely I, with youth, and health, and work to do, should try to be cheerful, even though the work is not such as I could prefer.-----And you have been in France as well as England since I saw you last in August.  I want to hear further particulars of your travels, since you say that you have more to give.  They interested you very much, particularly those in France.”

“Very much, indeed; all the more as I acquired the language.  I wrote to you that I met with Clemence de Vericourt, now Madame Lenoir.”