ane. How can I go
off blindly on a fool's errand--in her interest, but without commission
or instructions?"

"Ask her for them, then. It is ungenerous to put on her the burden of
opening the subject. She is doubtless waiting for you to speak, and
wondering at your slackness."

"Hanged if I can understand that. How many times have you lectured me
about showing her proper respect, and restraining my native coarseness,
and what not; and now you want me to go to her like a trooper or a grand
inquisitor, and ask about the state of her feelings toward Hartman. I
can't do it, Jane. When you get into such a scrape, I might try it, if
you insisted--though it would go against me, as Sir Lancelot said: then
you could see how you liked it. Clarice wouldn't like it at all; and she
has deserved better things of me than that."

"She _has_ deserved better things of you than she is getting. I thought
you loved her as I do. So that was only one of your pretences?"

"I love her too well to harass her; to intrude upon her solitude when
she does not want me; to pry into her affairs without her consent, and
destroy what chance there is that she may call me when she is ready."

"She will never be ready, unless we, that are her first friends, come to
her aid against her own pride and shyness. You think me intrusive--a
meddlesome old maid, prying into what does not concern me: but, brother,
she and Mr. Hartman were made for one another. They were deeply
interested, both of them--I could see it plainly: it would have been
settled in a few days more, if that wretched misunderstanding had not
occurred. _He_ may get over it; he is a man, though he did not seem to
be that kind. But she--she is of the deep, and silent, and constant
type: she will nurse this hurt till it kills her. I love her, Robert;
she has nobody but us. She never knew a thing like this before; it is
her first experience. Other men to her were playthings, or bores; she
had no friend among them but you. You cannot fancy how hard it is for
her; harder far than for a younger girl. She is so helpless, for all her
pride--her pride makes her more helpless to speak or act. If I could
only help her, now--"

And here, to my amazement, my stately sister broke down in a passion of
tears and sobs: I never knew her do such a thing before. I patted, and
petted, and soothed her, and did all that a man of humanity and
experience does in such cases. I shall apply for the title, Consoler of
F