had not been bitten by speculation. He thought of
winsome little Sylvie, and one summer evening when Irene Lawrence
stepped into that pretty, cosey room with the grace and beauty of a
Juno. Where was she now? And what was Fred doing? Making a great leap
into name and fame, doubtless, now that he was put upon his mettle. The
old boyish freaks came back to his mind, the enthusiastic unreasoning
adoration, the last tender parting. An intense and subtile sympathy
filled his soul; and, though he smiled a little, the memory was very
sacred.

The texture of Jack's mind was not of the quick, brilliant, or sanguine
order. He went over his books again; he ruminated as he cleaned the
garden-paths, spaded the beds, trimmed the trees and shrubbery, and
attended to the odds and ends known only to a careful householder.
Cousin Jane was in her element out here; and they two discoursed of
farming and gardening, and industry, she in a sharp, trenchant way.

She had remarked incidentally that her visit was near its end. Now that
Jack was home, cousin Ellen would not need her.

"I don't see why you should not make your home here, cousin Jane,"
replied Mrs. Darcy. "Grandmother grows feebler all the time, and you
have quite spoiled me by your strength and cheeriness. You have no
nearer tie; and if you _could_ content yourself with us--Jack was
speaking about it a few evenings since. We should like so to keep you,
cousin Jane."

Jane Morgan studied the beseeching eyes a while, then dropped her own,
and thought.

"Very well," she answered, "if you like to have it so. While I am well
and strong I think I ought to do enough somewhere to earn my living, and
not use up the little laid by for a rainy day. If you and Jack are
agreed, we'll consider it a bargain for a year. I like to be settled
about what I'm going to do: there's nothing so uncomfortable as hanging
on tenterhooks. When my visit's through I like to go, if I'm going; not
stand an hour or two with the door-knob in my hand."

Jack was delighted. They could spare him now and then of an evening to
stroll down to Maverick's office, where they discussed pretty nearly
every thing under the sun. It was so in the beginning,--"the earth was
without form, and void." Then the Barrys returned; Sylvie changed in
some indescribable way as to a kind of delicate outside manner, but the
same fresh, earnest girl in heart and soul, taking up her friendship
with Jack just where she had laid it down.