Francis came up, to be surprised at the sight of Mr. Brandon, and to receive a hurried explanation of his presence at Peggy Walker’s, and then they went for a walk.  By daylight he was struck more with the change that had shown itself in both of his cousins, and with the poor home they had to live in.  Jane’s proposal on the previous night to go to Mrs. Dunn’s had distressed him more than any other of her projects, and yet he could do nothing to prevent it, unless by making the sacrifice which my young lady readers think he should have made long ago, and given up the estate to marry his cousin.  “All for love, and the world well lost,” is a fascinating course of procedure in books and on the stage, but in real life there are a good many things to be considered.  It was only lately that Francis had discovered how very dear Jane was to him.  If such a woman had come across his path when he was in the bank with his 250 pounds a-year, with any reasonable chance of obtaining her, he would have exerted every effort and made every sacrifice to gain such a companion for life.  He would have given up all his more expensive bachelor habits—­his book-buying, and his public amusements, and thought domestic happiness cheaply purchased by such privations.  And if Jane could have shared his brighter fortune, he would have offered his hand and heart long before.  But now, even supposing that he had contracted no expensive habits, and he found that he had—­that he liked the handsome fortune, and the luxuries annexed to it—­it was not his own personal gratification that he was required to give up, but the duties, and the opportunities for usefulness that Jane so highly prized for him.  He could not even expect to take as good a position in the world as he had quitted.  His place at the Bank of Scotland was filled up, and the quixotic step he thought of taking was not likely to recommend him to business people.  And he must prepare not only for providing for a wife and family, but for Elsie, too; and until this day Elsie had shrunk from him, and he had rather despised her; but during their walk he saw the affectionate and sincere nature of Jane’s sister.  He thought that he could not only offer her a home, but that he had some prospect of making it a happy one, which is by far the most important thing in such matters, and he gradually brought himself to believe that it was right he should make the sacrifice.  Other opportunities of usefulness might open themselves in some other sphere; he would give up Cross Hall to the benevolent societies if Jane would only consent to be his wife.  The cousinship he thought no objection; they were both very healthy in body and in mind, and as unlike each other in temperament and constitution as if they were not related.  Neither Jane nor Elsie was likely to keep her health at a sedentary employment; it was the daily long walk that had kept them so well as they were.  It was not right to undervalue private happiness, after all,