’Wasn’t it a fine thing to have such a test?  Not that I ever came to trying it.  Simple no answered my purpose.  I met no one who tempted me to make the experiment.’

‘Two men!’ said Isabel, ’if you had said one, it would have been marked.’

‘Jem and Louis, of course,’ said Clara.

‘Oh! that is as good as saying one.’

‘As good as saying none,’ said Clara, with emphasis.

‘There may be different opinions on that point,’ returned Isabel, not daring to lift her eyes from her work, though longing to study Clara’s face, and feeling herself crimsoning.

‘Extremely unfounded opinions, and rather—­’

‘Rather what?’

‘Impertinent, I was going to say, begging your pardon, dear Isabel.’

‘Nay, I think it is I who should beg yours, Clara.’

‘No, no,’ said Clara, laughing, but speaking gravely immediately after, ’lookers-on do not always see most of the game.  I have always known his mind so well that I could never possibly have fallen into any such nonsense.  I respect him far too much.’

Isabel felt as if she must hazard a few words more—­’Can you guess what he will do if Mr. Ponsonby’s reports prove true?’

‘I do not mean to anticipate misfortunes,’ said Clara.

Isabel could say no more; and when Clara next spoke, it was to ask for another of James’s wristbands to stitch.  Then Isabel ventured to peep at her face, and saw it quite calm, and not at all rosy; if it had been, the colour was gone.

Thus it was, and there are happily many such friendships existing as that between Louis and Clara.  Many a woman has seen the man whom she might have married, and yet has not been made miserable.  If there be neither vanity nor weak self-contemplation on her side, nor trifling on his part, nor unwise suggestions forced on her by spectators, the honest, genuine affection need never become passion.  If intimacy is sometimes dangerous, it is because vanity, folly, and mistakes are too frequent; but in spite of all these, where women are truly refined, and exalted into companions and friends, there has been much more happy, frank intercourse and real friendship than either the romantic or the sagacious would readily allow.  The spark is never lighted, there is no consciousness, no repining, and all is well.

Fresh despatches from Lima arrived; and after a day, when Oliver had been so busy overlooking the statement from Guayaquil that he would not even take his usual airing, he received Clara with orders to write and secure his passage by the next packet for Callao.

’Dear uncle, you would never dream of it!  You could not bear the journey!’ she cried, aghast.

’It would do me good.  Do not try to cross me, Clara.  No one else can deal with this pack of rascals.  Your brother has not been bred to it, and is a parson besides, and there’s not a soul that I can trust.  I’ll go.  What! d’ye think I can live on him and on you, when there is a competence of my own out there, embezzled among those ragamuffins?’