solitary struggle with fortune a constant and unfailing pleasure. He
had found in them some amends for the want of relatives and the
want of sympathy; and now his heart turned with strong affection to
both of his cousins, and especially to the one who treated him with so
much delicacy of feeling and such generous confidence. It was like
finding a long-lost sister; there was so much to ask and to answer on
either side. Jane liked to talk of her uncle; and Francis' curiosity
about his unknown father, whom he had only occasionally seen at long
intervals as a stranger who took a little interest in him, was
satisfied by her clear and graphic descriptions of his opinions, his
talk, and his habits; whilst she, beginning a new life, and doubtful of
the issue, eagerly asked of his early experiences, and liked to
chronicle every little step in a steady and well-deserved progress.

Though Jane had such a practical turn of mind, and such an excellent
education, it must not be supposed that she knew much of the world.
Educate women as you will, that knowledge is rarely attained at
twenty-three; and she had lived so much in a Utopia of her own,
fancying that things that were right were always expedient, and that
they should always be valued for their intrinsic worth, that she did
not see the difficulties of her situation as clearly as many people who
had not half her understanding. She and her uncle had been too apt to
talk of things as they ought to be, and not as they actually were. With
all Jane's quiet good sense, there were points on which she could be
enthusiastic, and on this evening the successful cousin was struck by
the warm expressions of an optimism in which he could not share,
uttered by one who had good cause for complaint and dissatisfaction.

When the cousins went together to the Bank of Scotland on the following
day, and were shown into Mr. Rennie's private room, Jane's hopes were