"All right," said Jane, compelling herself to count the notes according to her old methodical way.
"And you like my cottages, Jane, and you hope great things from the allotments, and you were pleased with my two speeches in parliament? Oh! Jane, if I am ever worth anything I will owe it to you, and now you are going to put half the globe between us, I feel as if I had lost more than half of myself."
Jane could scarcely trust herself to speak.
"It is better so, Francis."
"If you miss me as I know I will miss you, write and tell me so. You KNOW, Jane, I love you," said Francis.
"I feared it."
"Why should you fear it? Is it not the most natural, the most reasonable thing I could do? If you loved me you would not fear it."
"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.