as a junior clerk, at the age of sixteen, and got
30 pounds for the first two years. An unknown friend--I know now who he
was--who had paid for my education and all other expenses previously,
sent me 12 pounds a year for three years to help out my earnings."

"And you could live on that?" said Jane.

"I did live on it somehow," said Francis. "My coats were very
threadbare and my meals scanty, but I weathered these three years, and
then I got a good step, and crept up gradually. I have been now in this
same bank for seventeen years, and am at present in the receipt of 250
pounds a year, thinking myself rich and fortunate;--now I am rich and
unfortunate. Why did not my father leave me to the career I had made
for myself, and you to the inheritance you had been brought up to
expect?"

"Thirty pounds a year to begin with," said Jane, half aloud; "250
pounds after seventeen years' work. Very sweet--all one's own earning.
I am not afraid, only let Elsie keep up heart."

"I cannot," said Elsie; "I'll be dead long before seventeen years are
over."

"I will take good care of you," said Jane.

"How are you to take good care either of yourself or of me if we are
starving?" said Elsie, with a fresh burst of tears.

"We will do our best. So you are going, Mr. Hogarth. Write to me if you
can hear of anything for me. I will be much obliged to you. Good-bye."

Jane shook hands with her cousin kindly, and soon after Mr. MacFarlane,
and Mr. Baird also, withdrew, leaving the sisters alone. Elsie wept
till she was completely exhausted, while her sister sat at the table
with pen and ink and paper before her, but writing nothing.

After a while Elsie started up from the sofa. "Jane," said she, "if we
were to marry, it would put an end to all this perplexity. It was
strange that uncle put in the clause forbidding us to marry that man.
Neither of us would demean ourselves so much, but uncle disliked the
marriage of near relatives. How strange that so little is said about
the mother. I could not look at him, but you did. Is he like his
father? My uncle was a very handsome man; I fancy this man is plain."

"I see little or no likeness to my uncle, but he is by no means
plain-looking."

"Will he get into society? Do they consider such people legitimate?"

"The marriage was irregular, but legal," said Jane. "I see now the
cause my uncle had to dislike the Scotch marriage law. He must have
been made very miserable from some unguarded