is wondrous
feasible."

"What salary should I ask?" said Jane; "or should I leave it to Mr.
Phillips?"

"You had better leave it to him; he is not such a skinflint as our
benevolent associations. I always found both him and Mr. Brandon
open-handed and willing to pay well for all that was done for them. To
me, Mr. Phillips was most extraordinary liberal."

"Then you think it likely I will get this situation at a respectable
salary?"

"I think you are almost sure of it."

"What good news for Francis, to-morrow!" said Jane.

Volume II.

Chapter I.

How Francis Received The Good News

When Francis, after a night's rest disturbed by thoughts and
calculations as to ways and means, had arrived at the definite
resolution to ask Jane Melville to marry him, he recalled a thousand
signs of her affectionate regard for him--of her understanding his
character as no one ever cared to understand it before--of her sympathy
with all his past life and his present position, which left him no
doubt that she would return his love and accept of him. The home and
the welcome he was prepared to offer to Elsie would plead with her own
heart in his favour. All her theoretical objections as to cousins
marrying (which after all is a very doubtful point, and has much to be
said on both sides); all her ambition for himself would melt away
before the warmth of the truest love and the hope of the happiest home
in the world. And yet she was not to be won entirely, or even chiefly,
by personal pleadings for happiness, or by the feeling that her life
and Elsie's might go on smoothly and cheerfully with him. She was to be
convinced that it was right that she should marry him, and then the
whole of her affectionate and ardent nature would abandon itself to the
pleasure of loving and being beloved. It was because she had no husband
to occupy her heart that she dwelt so fondly on those abstractions of
public duty and social progress, and he would convince her that out of
an aggregate of happy homes a happy people is composed. She had found
opportunities both of gaining knowledge and of doing good in the most
unfavourable circumstances, and she would have more chances as his
wife, with his co-operation and sympathy.

She was not the sort of woman his poetical and artistic dreams had been
wont to draw as the partner of his life; not the lovely, clinging,
dependent girl who would look up to him for counsel and support, but
somethi