look.

Jane, like all women who are interested in public matters at all, and
they form a very small minority of her sex, rather over-estimated the
importance of a parliamentary career. She knew the turn of her cousin's
mind, his education as a man of the people, his position as a man of
property, his earnest desire to do right, his patient habits of
business, and his thorough method of research and inquiry, were all
certain guarantees that he could not fail; and she had the belief that
his abilities, and readiness, and confidence would make him an eloquent
and skilful debater. It appeared to her to be an object of great
importance that a perfectly honest and independent member should
replace for the burghs in her native country the nominee of a great
family, who only voted with his party, and never had done any credit
either to the electors or to the nation. She said truly when she spoke
of her ambition finding its vent in dreams about him and her pupil, Tom
Lowrie. She certainly had influenced Francis Hogarth's character
greatly during the turning-point of his life; the ideas she had nursed
in her trials had been on his mind with force and earnestness, and
through him she could hope to give a voice to a number of her crotchets
and theories. Where a woman writes as well as thinks, she does not feel
this dependence on the other sex so strongly; for, though at a
disadvantage, she can for herself utter her thoughts--but Jane, as my
readers will have observed, was not literary. She was an intelligent,
well-informed, observing woman, but her field was action, and not
books. In her present situation she had very little time for reading;
but, from all that she saw, and from all the conversation she could
hear, she found hints for action and subjects for thought. To see
Francis in the British Parliament was a worthy ambition, and to give up
such a probable career for an inglorious and obscure life with herself
was not to be thought of. His wistful looks and earnest tones were to
be treasured up in her heart for ever; but her own love for him was not
of that imperious and unreasonable nature that she could not live
without him.

Chapter XII.

Chiefly Political

"Do you think that you can really get in?' said Jane, eagerly. 'I know
that my uncle said the Liberal interest was much stronger in the burghs
of late, and you are really the fittest man they could have. I was
quite pleased to hear from Tom that you are so s