"I thought that in all your many avocations, and especially in public
life, that you would forget this fancy, but it is well that I must
leave the country, for then I may hope that you will form another
attachment. Write to me when you do so, that I may know I have not
permanently deprived you of domestic happiness, and that I may pray for
you both. You think you owe me much, but to you I owe still more. Till
I knew you I had no religion, I never knew the privilege of prayer.
Even though we may never meet again on earth, we can look forward to a
happy meeting in heaven."

"Now, Jane, when you women bid good-bye to a friend of your own sex, as
dear to you as I am to you--for in a sense I am dear to you, am I not?"

"Yes, very dear to me," was wrung out of Jane, by Francis' earnest
looks and words.

"Well, when you bade farewell to Peggy this morning, she took you in
her arms and kissed you--you kissed Mary Forrester, a stranger to
you--and you are going to leave me--perhaps for ever--me, who would
give my life to serve you, who would give up fortune, fame, almost duty
for your sake, and you will shake hands coldly, and say--'Good-bye,
Francis.'"

"Not coldly, my friend--my brother. Do not think I can part from you
so," and by an irresistible impulse, she turned to her cousin, and felt
herself folded for a few seconds in his arms, and kissed with
passionate tenderness.

"This is what might have been ours for life, but for this accursed
will, and your notions of what is best for me, and perhaps a natural
disinclination towards my suit. Reflect--think--before it is too late
make your choice;--love in poverty and obscurity, perhaps--but still
love."

"Love is not all life, either for you or for me;--it is better for us
to part."

"Then you make your choice;--but Jane, if you change your mind, write
to me, and let me know. I tried to leave off writing at one time; but
it did no good, for I could do nothing that did not remind me of you.
Then it must be good-bye. May God bless you, my beloved one, now and
for ever!"

"May God bless you, my dear Francis, and now farewell!"

Another sort of farewell from her dismissal of William Dalzell!
Centuries had seemed to have passed over her since that first eventful
day of her life. She scarcely could identify herself with the woman who
had so calmly and so kindly extinguished a fancied partiality, as she
sat down in her own room and trembled from head to foot at the thought