ever it may be to others.
Of course a man will promise anything when he has an object to gain. I
suppose you left him in the depths of despair and on a pinnacle of
ecstasy at once."

"That is about it. Let us be thankful that you and I are well beyond
these follies.--My dear, I wasn't alluding to your age; upon my honor
I wasn't. I only meant that your elevation of mind and dignity of
character lift you far above such idiotic transports, and give you a
right to despise weak creatures like Jim, and in some degree even
myself. No man is worthy of you, Jane: you know you never would look at
any of them. What did I tell you about your looks? Except Clarice, and
perhaps I ought to say Mabel, and a few on the cars, you are by far the
handsomest woman I've seen since I left home."

"After your week among the belles of Wayback, that compliment seems
strained. O, I see: Clarice was not in the right mood just now, and your
tide of geniality rolled back upon itself, so that it has to break loose
on some one else: or you are to see her again to-morrow, and must
practice smooth things meantime to say then.--Ah, it is both, is it?"

"Sister, you are an external conscience--except that you won't approve
when I have done the right thing, and done it well. You would be
invaluable to Jim. I doubt whether he and Clarice will get on; and he
thinks a heap of you. If he don't suit her on further inspection, or
makes any more blunders, you might take him in hand and make a man of
him."

"So as to keep him in reach as material for you? Robert, if you want me
to comfort you when Clarice is gone, you will have to make your light
humor much lighter yet, and let me select subjects for its exercise."

"Now, now--do you think I would offer you secondhand goods? If I had
known him then as I do to-day, I would have let her go off in June as
she proposed, and fixed it the other way. It would have saved no end of
bother."

"And deprived you of a source of huge amusement, and an unprecedented
field for the display of your peculiar talents. Do you think men and
women are mere puppets for you to play with? You would make but a poor
tenth-rate Providence--though you may have succeeded in this case. Tell
me how you did it."

"I showed him that he was all wrong. He knew that already, but thought
she didn't care. I told him she did."

"Robert! You have not betrayed her? Is this your diplomacy?"

"Of course not: how you talk, Jane. I said her interes