rove 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?'

'I am sure we had much rather--'

'No stuff and nonsense. Here is Roland with four children
already--very likely to have a dozen more. If you and he are fools,
I'm not, and I won't take the bread out of their mouths. I'll leave my
will behind, bequeathing whatever I may get out of the fire evenly
between you two, as the only way to content you; and if I never turn up
again, why you're rid of the old man.'

'Very well, uncle, I shall take my own passage at the same time.'

'You don't know what you are talking of. You are a silly child, and
your brother would be a worse if he let you go.'

'If Jem lets you go,