"I am charged with a message to you from Jane--I should say, charged with her entreaties, that you will not suspend our intercourse with Mr. Streatfield, or view his conduct in any other than a merciful light--as conduct for which accident and circumstances are alone to blame. After she had given me this message to you, she turned to Clara, who sat weeping by her side, completely overcome; and said that _they_ were to blame, if any one was to be blamed in the matter, for being so much alike as to make all who saw them apart doubt which was Clara and which was Jane. She said this with a faint smile, and an effort to speak playfully, which touched us to the heart. Then, in a tone and manner which I can never forget, she asked her sister--charging her, on their mutual affection and mutual confidence, to answer sincerely--if _she_ had noticed Mr. Streatfield on the day of the _levee_, and had afterwards remembered him at the dinner-table, as _he_ had noticed and remembered _her_? It was only after Jane had repeated this appeal, still more earnestly and affectionately, that Clara summoned courage and composure enough to confess that she _had_ noticed Mr. Streatfield on the day of the _levee_, had thought of him afterwards during his absence from London, and had recognized him at our table, as he had recognized her. "Is it possible! I own I had not anticipated--not thought for one moment of that," said Mr. Langley. "Perhaps," continued his wife, "it is best that you should see Jane now, and judge for yourself. For _my_ part, her noble resignation under this great trial, has so astonished and impressed me, that I only feel competent to advise, as she advises, to act as she thinks fit. I begin to think that it is not _we_ who are to guide _her_, but _she_ who is to guide _us_." Mr. Langley lingered irresolute for a few minutes; then quitted the room, and proceeded along to Jane Langley's apartment. When he knocked at the door, it was opened by Clara. There was an expression partly of confusion, partly of sorrow on her face; and when her father stopped as if to speak to her, she merely pointed into the room, and hurried away without uttering a word.