Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two / Carleton, William, 1794-1869

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Title: Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale
       The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two

Author: William Carleton

Illustrator: M. L. Flanery

Release Date: June 7, 2005 [EBook #16005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger





JANE SINCLAIR;

OR, THE FAWN OF SPRINGVALE.


By William Carleton




PART I.


If there be one object in life that stirs the current of human feeling
more sadly than another, it is a young and lovely woman, whose intellect
has been blighted by the treachery of him on whose heart, as on a
shrine, she offered up the incense of her first affection. Such a being
not only draws around her our tenderest and most delicate sympathies,
but fills us with that mournful impression of early desolation,
resembling so much the spirit of melancholy romance that arises from
one of those sad and gloomy breezes which sweep unexpectedly over the
sleeping surface of a summer lake, or moans with a tone of wail and
sorrow through the green foliage of the wood under whose cooling shade
we sink into our noon-day dream. Madness is at all times a thing of
fearful mystery, but when it puts itself forth in a female gifted with
youth and beauty, the pathos it causes becomes too refined for the
grossness of ordinary sorrow--almost transcends our notion of the
real, and assumes that wild interest which invests it with the dim and
visionary light of the ideal. Such a malady constitutes the very romance
of affliction, and gives to the fair sufferer rather the appearance of
an angel fallen without guilt, than that of a being moulded for mortal
purposes. Who ever could look upon such a beautiful ruin without feeling
the heart sink, and the mind overshadowed with a solemn darkness, as
if conscious of witnessing the still and awful gloom of that disastrous
eclipse of reason, which, alas! is so often doomed never to pass away.

It is difficult to account for the mingled reverence, and terror, and
pity with which we look upon the insane, and it is equally strange that
in this case we approach the temple of the mind with deeper homage,
when we know that the divinity has passed out of it. It must be from a
conviction of this that uncivilized nations venerate deranged persons as
inspired, and in some instance go so far, I believe, as even to pay them
divine worship.

The principle, however, is in our nature: that for which our sympathy is
deep and unbroken never fails to secure our compassion and respect, and
ultimately to excite a still higher class of our moral feelings.

These preliminary observations were suggested to me by the fate of the
beautiful but unfortunate girl, the melancholy, events of whose life
I am about to communicate. I feel, indeed, that in relating them,
I undertake a task that would require a pen of unexampled power and
delicacy. But it is probable that if I remained silent upon a history
at once so true, and so full of sorrow; no other person equally intimate
with its incidents will ever give them to the world. I cannot presume
to detail unhappy Jane's, calamity with the pathos due to a woe so
singularly deep and delicate, or to describe that faithful attachment
which gave her once laughing and ruby lips the white smile of a maniac's
misery. This I cannot do; for who, alas, could ever hope to invest a
dispensation so dark as her's with that rich tone of poetic beauty which
threw its wild graces about her madness? For my part, I consider the
subject not only as difficult, but sacred, and approach it on both
accounts with devotion, and fear, and trembling. I need scarcely inform
the reader that the names and localities are, for obvious reasons,
fictitious, but I may be permitted to add that the incidents are
substantially correct and authentic.

Jane Sinclair was the third and youngest daughter of a dissenting
clergyman, in one of the most interesting counties in the north of
Ireland. Her father was remarkable for that cheerful simplicity of
character which is so frequently joined to a high order of intellect and
an affectionate warmth of heart. To a well-tempered zeal in the cause
of faith and morals, he added a practical habit of charity, both in word
and deed, such as endeared him to all classes, but especially to those
whose humble condition in life gave them the strongest claim upon his
virtues, both as a man and a pastor. Difficult, indeed, would it be to
find a minister of the gospel, whose practice and precept corresponded
with such beautiful fitness, nor one who, in the midst of his own
domestic circle, threw such calm lustre around him as a husband and
a father. A temper grave but sweet, wit playful and innocent, and
tenderness that kept his spirit benignant to error without any
compromise of duty, were the links which bound all hearts to him. Seldom
have I known a Christian clergyman who exhibited in his own life so much
of the unaffected character of apostolic holiness, nor one of whom
it might be said with so much truth, that "he walked in all the
commandments of the Lord blameless."

His family, which consisted of his wife, one son, and three daughters,
had, as might be expected, imbibed a deep sense of that religion, the
serene beauty of which shone so steadily along their father's path
of life. Mrs. Sinclair had been well educated, and in her husband's
conversation and society found further opportunity of improving, not
only her intellect, but her heart. Though respectably descended, she
could not claim relationship with what may be emphatically termed the
gentry of the country; but she could with that class so prevalent in the
north of Ireland, which ranks in birth only one grade beneath them. I
say in birth;--for in all the decencies of life, in the unostentatious
bounties of benevolence, in moral purity, domestic harmony, and a
conscientious observance of religion, both in the comeliness of
its forms, and the cheerful freedom of its spirit, this class ranks
immeasurably above every other which Irish society presents. They who
compose it are not sufficiently wealthy to relax those pursuits of
honorable industry which constitute them, as a people, the ornament of
our nation; nor does their good-sense and decent pride permit them to
follow the dictates of a mean ambition, by struggling to reach that
false elevation, which is as much beneath them in all the virtues
that grace life, as it is above them in the dazzling dissipation
which renders the violation or neglect of its best duties a matter of
fashionable etiquette, or the shameful privilege of high birth. To this
respectable and independent class did the immediate relations of Mrs.
Sinclair belong; and, as might be expected, she failed not to bring all
its virtues to her husband's heart and household--there to soothe him by
their influence, to draw fresh energy from their mutual intercourse, and
to shape the habits of their family into that perception of self-respect
and decent propriety, which in domestic duty, dress, and general
conduct, uniformly results from a fine sense of moral feeling, blended
with high religious principle. This, indeed, is the class whose example
has diffused that spirit of keen intelligence and enterprise throughout
the north which makes the name of an Ulster manufacturer or merchant a
synonym for integrity and honor. From it is derived the creditable love
of independence which operates upon the manners of the people and the
physical soil of the country so obviously, that the natural appearance
of the one may be considered as an appropriate exponent of the
moral condition of the other. Aided by the genius of a practical and
impressive creed, whose simple grandeur gives elevation and dignity
to its followers;--this class it is which, by affording employment,
counsel, and example to many of the lower classes, brings peace and
comfort to those who inhabit the white cottages and warm farmsteads
of the north, and lights up its cultivated landscapes, its broad
champaigns, and peaceful vales, into an aspect so smiling, that even
the very soil seems to proclaim and partake of the happiness of its
inhabitants. Indeed, few spots in the north could afford the spectator
a better opportunity of verifying our observations as to the mild
beauty of the country, than the residence of the amiable clergyman whose
unhappy child's fate has furnished us with the affecting circumstances
we are about to lay before the reader.

Springvale House, Mr. Sinclair's residence, was situated on an eminence
that commanded a full view of the sloping valley from which it had
its name. Along this vale, winding towards the house in a northern
direction, ran a beautiful tributary stream, accompanied for nearly two
miles in its progress by a small but well conducted road, which indeed
had rather the character of a green lane than a public way, being but
very little of a thoroughfare. Nothing could surpass this delightful
vale in the soft and serene character of its scenery. Its sides,
partially wooded, and cultivated with surpassing taste, were not so
precipitous as to render habitation in its bosom inconvenient. They
sloped up gradually and gracefully on each side, presenting to the eye
a number of snow-white residences, each standing upon the brow of
some white table or undulation, and surrounded by grounds sufficiently
spacious to allow of green lawns, ornamented plantations, and gardens,
together with a due proportion of land for cultivation and pasture. From
Mr. Sinclair's house the silver bends of this fine stream gave exquisite
peeps to the spectator as they wound out of the wood which here and
there clothed its banks, occasionally dipping into the water. On the
loft, attached to the glebe-house of the Protestant pastor of the
parish, the eye rested upon a pond as smooth as a mirror, except where
an occasional swan, as it floated onwards without any apparent effort,
left here and there a slight quivering ripple behind it. Farther down,
springing from between two clumps of trees, might be seen the span of a
light and elegant arch, from under which the river gently wound away to
the right; and beyond this, on the left, about a hundred yards from the
bank, rose up the slender spire of the parish church, out of the bosom
of the old beeches that overshadowed it, and threw a solemn gloom upon
the peaceful graveyard at its side. About two hundred yards again to
the right, in a little green shelving dell beneath the house, stood Mr.
Sinclair's modest white meeting-house, with a large ash tree hanging
over each gable, and a row of poplars behind it. The valley at the
opposite extremity opened upon a landscape bright and picturesque,
dotted with those white residences which give that peculiar character of
warmth and comfort for which the northern landscapes are so remarkable.
Indeed the eye could scarcely rest upon a richer expanse of country than
lay stretched out before it, nor can we omit to notice the singularly
unique and beautiful effect produced by the numerous bleach-greens that
shone at various degrees of distance, and contrasted so sweetly with the
surface of a land deeply and delightfully verdant.

In the far distance rose the sharp outlines of a lofty mountain, whose
green and sloping base melted into the "sun-silvered" expanse of
the sea, on the smooth bosom of which the eye could snatch brilliant
glimpses of the snow-white sails that sparkled at a distance as they
fell under the beams of the noonday sun. The landscape was indeed
beautiful in itself, but still rendered more so by the delicate aerial
tints which lay on every object, and touched the whole into a mellower
and more exquisite expression.

Such was the happy valley in which this peaceful family resided; each
and all enjoying that tranquility which sheds its calm contentment over
the unassuming spirits of those who are ignorant of the crimes that
flow from the selfishness and ambition of busy life. To them, the fresh
breezes of morning, as they rustled through the living foliage, and
stirred the modest flowers of their pleasant path, were fraught with an
enjoyment which bound their hearts to every object around them,
because to each of them these objects were the sources of habitual
gratification. On them the dewy stillness of evening descended with
tender serenity, as the valley shone in the radiance of the sinking sun;
and by them was held that sweet and rapturous communion with nature,
which, as it springs earliest in the affections so does it linger about
the heart when all the other loves and enmities of life are forgotten.
Who is there, indeed, whose spirit does not tremble with tenderness, on
looking back upon the scenes of his early life? And, alas! alas! how few
are there of those that are long conversant with the world, who can take
such a retrospect without feeling their hearts weighed down by sorrow,
and the force of associations too mournful to be uttered in words.
The bitter consciousness that we can be youthful no more, and that
the golden hours of our innocence have passed away for ever, throws a
melancholy darkness over the soul, and sends it back again to retrace,
in the imaginary light of our early time, the scenes where that
innocence had been our playmate. Let no man deny that groves, and
meadows, and green fields, and winding streams, and all the other charms
of rural imagery, unconsciously but surely give to the human heart a
deep perception of that graceful creed which is beautifully termed
the religion of nature. They give purity and strength to feeling,
and through the imagination, which owes so much of its power to their
impressions, they raise our sentiments until we feel them kindled into
union with the lustre of a holier light than even that which leads our
steps to God through the beauty of his own works. For this reason it is,
that all imaginative affections are much stronger in the country than in
the town. Love in the one place is not only freer from the coarseness
of passion, but incomparably more seductive to the heart, and more
voluptuous in its conception of the ideal beauty with which it invests
the object of its attachment. Nor is this surprising. In the country
its various associations are essentially impressive and poetical.
Moonlight--evening--the still glen--the river side--the flowery
hawthorn--the bower--the crystal well--not forgetting the melody of
the woodland songster--are all calculated, to make the heart and
fancy surrender themselves to the blandishments of a passion that is
surrounded by objects so sweetly linked to their earliest sympathies.
But this is not all. In rural life, neither the heart nor the eye is
distracted by the claims of rival beauty, when challenging, in the
various graces of many, that admiration which might be bestowed on one
alone, did not each successive impression efface that which went before
it. In the country, therefore, in spring meadows, among summer groves,
and beneath autumnal skies, most certainly does the passion of love sink
deepest into the human heart, and pass into the greatest extremes of
happiness or pain. Here is where it may be seen, cheek to cheek, now
in all the shivering ecstacies of intense rapture, or again moping
carelessly along, with pale brow and flashing eye, sometimes writhing
in the agony of undying attachment, or chanting its mad lay of hope and
love in a spirit of fearful happiness more affecting than either misery
or despair.

Everything was beautiful in the history of unhappy Jane Sinclair's
melancholy fate. The evening of the incident to which the fair girl's
misery might eventually be traced was one of the most calm and balmy
that could be witnessed even during the leafy month of June. With the
exception of Mrs. Sinclair, the whole family had gone out to saunter
leisurely by the river side; the father between his two eldest
daughters, and Jane, then sixteen, sometimes chatting to her brother
William, and sometimes fondling a white dove, which she had petted and
trained with such success that it was then amenable to almost every
light injunction she laid upon it. It sat upon her shoulder, which,
indeed, was its usual seat, would peck her cheek, cower as if with a
sense of happiness in her bosom, and put its bill to her lips, from
which it was usually fed, either to demand some sweet reward for its
obedience, or to express its attachment by a profusion of innocent
caresses. The evening, as we said, was fine; not a cloud could be seen,
except a pile of feathery flakes that hung far up at the western gate
of heaven; the stillness was profound; no breathing even of the gentlest
zephyr, could be felt; the river beside them, which was here pretty
deep, seemed motionless; not a leaf of the trees stirred; the very
aspens were still as if they had been marble; and the whole air was warm
and fragrant. Although the sun wanted an hour of setting, yet from the
bottom of the vale they could perceive the broad shafts of light which
shot from his mild disk through the snowy clouds we have mentioned, like
bars of lambent radiance, almost palpable to the touch. Yet, although
this delightful silence was so profound, the heart could perceive,
beneath its stillest depths, that voiceless harmony of progressing life,
which, like the music of a dream, can reach the soul independently of
the senses, and pour upon it a sublime sense of natural inspiration.

Something like this appears to have been felt by the group we have
alluded to. Mr. Sinclair, after standing for a moment on the bank of the
river, and raising his eyes to the solemn splendor of the declining sun,
looked earnestly around him, and then out upon the glowing landscape
that stretched beyond the valley, after which, with a spirit of
high-enthusiasm, he exclaimed, catching at the same time the fire and
grandeur of the poet's noble conception--

     These are thy glorious works. Parent of good!
     Almighty! thine this universal fame--
     Thus wondrous fair--thyself how wondrous then--
     To us invisible, or dimly seen
     In these thy lowest works.

There was something singularly impressive in the burst of piety which
the hour and the place drew from this venerable pastor, as indeed
there was in the whole group, as they listened in the attitude of deep
attention to his words. Mr. Sinclair was a tall, fine-looking old man,
whose white flowing locks fell down on each side of his neck. His
figure appeared to fine advantage, as, standing a little in front of his
children, he pointed with his raised arm to the setting sun; behind
him stood his two eldest girls, the countenance of one turned with an
expression of awe and admiration towards the west; that of the other
fixed with mingled reverence and affection on her father. William stood
near Jane, and looked out thoughtfully towards the sea, while Jane
herself, light, and young, and beautiful, stood with a hushed face, in
the act of giving a pat of gentle rebuke to the snow-white dove on her
bosom. At length they resumed their walk, and the conversation took a
lighter turn. The girls left their father's side, and strolled in many
directions through the meadow. Sometimes they pulled wild flowers,
if marked by more than ordinary beauty, or gathered the wild mint and
meadow-sweet to perfume their dairy, or culled the flowery woodbine to
shed its delicate fragrance through their sleeping-rooms. In fact, all
their habits and amusements were pastoral, and simple, and elegant. Jane
accompanied them as they strolled about, but was principally engaged
with her pet, which flew, in capricious but graceful circles over her
head, and occasionally shot off into the air, sweeping in mimic flight
behind a green knoll, or a clump of trees, completely out of her sight;
after which it would again return, and folding its snowy pinions, drop
affectionately upon her shoulder, or into her bosom. In this manner they
proceeded for some time, when the dove again sped off across the river,
the bank of which was wooded on the other side. Jane followed the
beautiful creature with a sparkling eye, and saw it wheeling to return,
when immediately the report of a gun was heard from the trees directly
beneath it, and the next moment it faltered in its flight, sunk, and
with feeble wing, struggled to reach the object of its affection. This,
however, was beyond its strength. After sinking gradually towards the
earth, it had power only to reach the middle of the river, into the
deepest part of which it fell, and there lay fluttering upon the stream.

The report of the gun, and the fate of the pigeon, brought the
personages of our little drama with hurrying steps to the edge of the
river. One scream of surprise and distress proceeded from the lips of
its fair young mistress, after which she wrung her hands, and wept and
sobbed like one in absolute despair.

"Oh, dear William," she exclaimed, "can you not rescue it? Oh, save
it--save it; if it sinks I will never see it more. Oh, papa, who could
be so cruel, so heartless, as to injure a creature so beautiful and
inoffensive?"

"I know not, my dear Jane; but cruel and heartless must the man be that
could perpetrate a piece of such wanton mischief. I should rather think
it is some idle boy who knows not that it is tame."

"William, dear William, can you not save it," she inquired again of her
brother; "if it is doomed to die, let it die with me; but, alas! now
it must sink, and I will never see it more;" and the affectionate girl
continued to weep bitterly.

"Indeed, my dear Jane, I never regretted my ignorance of swimming
so much as I do this moment. The truth is, I cannot swim a stroke,
otherwise I would save poor little Ariel for your sake."

"Don't take it so much to heart, my dear child," said her father; "it
is certainly a distressing incident, but, at the same time, your grief,
girl, is too excessive; it is violent, and you know it ought not to be
violent for the death of a favorite bird."

"Oh, papa, who can look upon its struggles for life, and not feel
deeply; remember it was mine, and think of its attachment to me. It
has not only the pain of its wound to suffer, but to struggle with an
element against which it feels a natural antipathy, and with which the
gentle creature is this moment contending for its life."

There was, indeed, something very painful and affecting in the situation
of the beautiful wounded dove. Even Mr. Sinclair himself, in witnessing
its unavailing struggles, felt as much; nor were the other two girls
unaffected any more than Jane herself. Their eyes became filled with
tears, and Maria, the eldest, said, "It is better, Jane, to return
home. Poor mute creature! the view of its sufferings is, indeed, very
painful."

Just then a tall, slender youth, apparently about eighteen, came out of
the trees on the other bank of the river but on seeing Mr. Sinclair and
his family, he paused, and appeared to feel somewhat embarrassed. It
was evident he had seen the bird wounded, and followed the course of
its flight, without suspecting that it was tame, or that there was
any person near to claim it. The distress of the females, however,
especially of its mistress, immediately satisfied him that it was
theirs, and he was about to withdraw into the wood again, when the
situation of poor Ariel caught his eye. He instantly took off his hat,
flung it across the river, and plunging in swam towards the dove, which
was now nearly exhausted. A few strokes brought him to the spot, on
reaching which, he caught the bird in one hand, held it above the water,
and, with the other, swam down towards a slope in the bank a few
yards below the spot where the party stood. Having gained the bank, he
approached them, but was met half way by Jane, whose eyes, now sparkling
through her tears, spoke her gratitude in language much more eloquent
than any her tongue could utter.

[Illustration: PAGE 5-- Having gained the bank, he approached them]

The youth first examined the bird, with a view to ascertain where it
had been wounded, and immediately placed it with much gentleness in the
eager hands of its mistress.

"It will not die, I should think, in consequence of the wound," he
observed, "which, though pretty severe, has left the wing unbroken. The
body, at all events, is safe. With care it may recover."

William then handed him his hat and Mr. Sinclair having thanked him for
an act of such humanity, insisted that he should go home with them, in
order to procure a change of apparel. At first he declined this offer,
but, after a little persuasion, he yielded with something of shyness
and hesitation: accordingly, without loss of time, they all reached the
house together.

Having, with some difficulty, been prevailed on to take a glass of
cordial, he immediately withdrew to William's apartment, for the purpose
of changing his dress. William, however, now observed that he got pale,
and that in a few minutes afterwards his teeth began to chatter, whilst
he shivered excessively.

"You had better lose no time in putting these dry clothes on," said he;
"I am rather inclined to think bathing does not agree with you, that is,
if I am to judge by your present paleness and trembling."

"No," said the youth, "it is a pleasure which, for the last two years, I
have been forbidden. I feel very chilly, indeed, and you will excuse me
for declining the use of your clothes. I must return home forthwith."

Young Sinclair, however, would not hear of this. After considerable
pains he prevailed on him to change his dress, but no argument could
induce him to stop a moment longer than until this was effected.

The family, on his entering the drawing-room to take his leave, were
surprised at a determination so sudden and unexpected, but when Mr.
Sinclair noticed his extreme paleness, he suspected that he had got ill,
and that it might not be delicate to press him.

"Before you leave us," said the good clergyman, "will you not permit us
to know the name of the young gentleman to whom my daughter is indebted
for the rescue of her dove?"

"We are as yet but strangers in the neighborhood," replied the youth:
"my father's name is Osborne. We have not been more than three days in
Mr. Williams's residence, which, together with the whole of the property
annexed to it, my father has purchased."

"I am aware, I am aware: then you will be a permanent neighbor of ours,"
said Mr. Sinclair; "and believe me, my dear boy, we shall always be
happy to see you at Springvale; nor shall we soon forget the generous
act which first brought us acquainted."

Whilst this short dialogue lasted, two or three shy sidelong glances
passed between him and Jane. So extremely modest was the young man that,
from an apprehension lest these glances might have been noticed, his
pale face became lit up with a faint blush, in which state of confusion
he took his leave.

Conversation was not resumed among the Sinclairs for some minutes after
his departure, each, in fact, having been engaged in reflecting upon the
surpassing beauty of his face, and the uncommon symmetry of his slender
but elegant person. Their impression, indeed, was rather that of wonder
than of mere admiration. The tall youth who had just left them seemed,
in fact, an incarnation of the beautiful itself--a visionary creation,
in which was embodied the ideal spirit of youth, intellect, and grace.
His face shone with that rosy light of life's prime which only glows on
the human countenance during the brief period that intervenes between
the years of the thoughtless boy and those of the confirmed man: and
whilst his white brow beamed with intellect, it was easy to perceive
that the fire of deep feeling and high-wrought enthusiasm broke out in
timid flashes from his dark eye. His modesty, too, by tempering the
full lustre of his beauty, gave to it a character of that graceful
diffidence, which above all others makes the deepest impression upon a
female heart.

"Well, I do think," said William Sinclair, "that young Osborne is
decidedly the finest boy I ever saw--the most perfect in beauty and
figure--and yet we have not seen him to advantage."

"I think, although I regretted to see him so, that he looked better
after he got pale," said Maria; "his features, though colorless, were
cut like marble."

"I hope his health may not be injured by what has occurred," observed
the second; "he appeared ill."

"That, Agnes, is more to the point," said Mr. Sinclair; "I fear the boy
is by no means well; and I am apprehensive, from the deep carnation of
his cheek, and his subsequent paleness, that he carries within him the
seeds of early dissolution. He is too delicate, almost too etherial for
earth."

"If he becomes an angel," said William, smiling, "with a very slight
change, he will put some of them out of countenance."

"William," said the father, "never, while you live attempt to be witty
at the expense of what is sacred or solemn; such jests harden the heart
of him who utters them, and sink his character, not only as a Christian,
but as a gentleman."

"I beg your pardon, father---I was wrong--but I spoke heedlessly."

"I know you did, Billy; but in future avoid it. Well, Jane, how is your
bird?"

"I think it is better, papa; but one can form no opinion so soon."

"Go, show it to your mamma--she is the best doctor among us--follow her
advice, and no doubt she will add its cure to the other triumphs of her
skill."

"Jane is fretting too much about it," observed Agnes; "why, Jane, you
are just now as pale as young Osborne himself."

This observation turned the eyes of the family upon her; but scarcely
had her sister uttered the words when the young creature's countenance
became the color of crimson, so deeply, and with such evident confusion
did she blush. Indeed she felt conscious of this, for she rose, with
the wounded dove lying gently between her hands and bosom, and passed,
without speaking, out of the room.

"Don't you think, papa," observed Miss Sinclair, "that there is a
striking resemblance between young Osborne and Jane? I could not help
remarking it."

"There decidedly is, Maria, now that you mentioned it," said William.

The father paused a little, as if to consider the matter, and then added
with a smile--

"It is very singular, Mary; but indeed I think there is--both in the
style of their features and their figure."

"Osborne is too handsome for a man," observed Agnes; "yet, after all,
one can hardly say so, his face, though fine, is not feminine."

"Beauty, my children!--alas, what is it? Often--too often, a fearful,
a fatal gift. It is born with us, and not of our own merit; yet we are
vain enough to be proud of it. It is at best a flower that soon fades--a
light that soon passes away. Oh! what is it when contrasted with those
high principles whose beauty is immortal, which brighten by age, and
know neither change nor decay. There is Jane--my poor child--she is
indeed very beautiful and graceful, yet I often fear that her beauty,
joined as it is to an over-wrought sensibility, may, before her life
closes, occasion much sorrow either to herself or others."

"She is all affection," said William.

"She is all love, all tenderness, all goodness; and may the grace of her
Almighty Father keep her from the wail and woe which too often accompany
the path of beauty in this life of vicissitude and trial."

A tear of affection for his beautiful child stood in the old man's eyes
as he raised them to heaven, and the loving hearts of his family burned
with tenderness towards this their youngest and best beloved sister.

The sun had now gone down, and, after a short pause, the old man desired
William to summon the other members of the household in to prayers.
The evening worship being concluded, the youngsters walked in the lawn
before the door until darkness began to set in, after which they retired
to their respective apartments for the night.

Sweet and light be your slumbers, O ye that are peaceful and good--sweet
be your slumbers on this night so calm and beautiful; for, alas, there
is one among you into whose I innocent bosom has stolen that destroying
spirit which will yet pale her fair cheek, and wring many a bitter
tear from the eyes that love to look upon her. Her early sorrows
have commenced this night, and for what mysterious purpose who can
divine?--but, alas, alas, her fate is sealed--the fawn of Springvale
is stricken, and even now carries in her young heart a wound that will
never close.

Osborne's father, who had succeeded to an estate of one thousand
per annum, was the eldest son of a gentleman whose habits were
badly calculated to improve the remnant of property which ancestral
extravagance had left him.

Ere many years the fragment which came into his possession dwindled into
a fraction of its former value, and he found himself With a wife and
four children--two sons and two daughters--struggling on a pittance of
two hundred a year. This, to a man possessing the feelings and education
of a gentleman, amounted to something like retributive justice upon his
prodigality. His conflict with poverty, however, (for to him it might
be termed such,) was fortunately not of long duration. A younger brother
who, finding that he must fight his own battle in life, had embraced
the profession of medicine, very seasonably died, and Osborne's father
succeeded to a sum of twelve thousand pounds in the funds, and an income
in landed property of seven hundred per annum. He now felt himself more
independent than he had ever been, and with this advantage, that his
bitter experience of a heartless world had completely cured him of
all tendency to extravagance. And now he would have enjoyed as much
happiness as is the usual lot of man, were it not that the shadow of
death fell upon his house, and cast its cold blight upon his children.
Ere three years had elapsed he saw his eldest daughter fade out of life,
and in less than two more his eldest son was laid beside her in the
same grave. Decline, the poetry of death, in its deadly beauty came
upon them, and whilst it sang its song of life and hope to their hearts,
treacherously withdrew them to darkness and the worm.

Osborne's feelings were those of thoughtlessness and extravagance; but
he had never been either a libertine or a profligate, although the world
forbore not, when it found him humbled in his poverty, to bring such
charges against him. In truth, he was full of kindness, and no parent
ever loved his children with deeper or more devoted affection. The death
of his noble son and beautiful girl brought down his spirit to the
most mournful depths of affliction. Still he had two left, and, as
it happened, the most beautiful, and more than equally possessed his
affections. To them was gradually transferred that melancholy love which
the heart of the sorrowing father had carried into the grave of the
departed; and alas, it appeared as if it had come back to those who
lived loaded with the malady of the dead. The health of the surviving
boy became delicate, and by the advice of his physician, who pronounced
the air in which they lived unfavorable,--Osborne, on hearing that Mr.
Williams, a distant relation, was about to dispose of his house and
grounds, immediately became the purchaser. The situation, which had
a southern aspect, was dry and healthy, the air pure and genial, and,
according to the best medical opinions, highly beneficial to persons of
a consumptive habit.

For two years before this--that is since his brother's death--the health
of young Osborne had been watched with all the tender vigilance of
affection. A regimen in diet, study and exercise, had been prescribed
for him by his physician; the regulations of which he was by no means to
transgress.

In fact his parents lived under a sleepless dread of losing him which
kept their hearts expanded with that inexpressible and burning
love which none but a parent so circumstanced can ever feel. Alas!
notwithstanding the promise of life which early years usually hold
out, there was much to justify them in this their sad and gloomy
apprehension. Woeful was the uncertainty which they felt in
discriminating between the natural bloom of youth and the beauty of that
fatal malady which they dreaded. His tall slender frame, his transparent
cheek, so touching, so unearthly in the fairness of its expression; the
delicacy of his whole organization, both mental and physical--all, all,
with the terror of decline in their hearts, spoke as much of despair as
of hope, and placed the life and death of their beloved boy in an equal
poise.

But, independently of his extraordinary personal advantages, all his
dispositions were so gentle and affectionate, that it was not I in
human nature to entertain harsh feeling toward him. Although modest and
shrinking, even to diffidence, he possessed a mind full of intellect and
enthusiasm: his imagination, too, overflowed with creative power, and
sought the dreamy solitudes of noon, that it might, far from the bustle
of life, shadow forth those images of beauty which come thickly only
upon those whose hearts are most susceptible of its forms. Many a time
has he sat alone upon the brow of a rock or hill, watching the clouds
of heaven, or gazing on the setting sun, or communing with the thousand
aspects of nature in a thousand moods, his young spirit relaxed into
that elysian reverie which, beyond all other kinds of intellectual
enjoyment, is the most seductive to a youth of poetic temperament.

There were, indeed, in Osborne's case, too many of those light and
scarcely perceptible tokens which might be traced, if not to a habit of
decline, at least to a more than ordinary delicacy of constitution.
The short cough, produced by the slightest damp, or the least breath of
ungenial air--the varying cheek, now rich as purple, and again pale as a
star of heaven--the unsteady pulse, and the nervous sense of uneasiness
without a cause--all these might be symptoms of incipient decay, or
proofs of those fine impulses which are generally associated with quick
sensibility and genius. Still they existed; at one time oppressing the
hearts of his parents with fear, and again exalting them with pride. The
boy was consequently enjoined to avoid all violent exercise, to keep out
of Currents, while heated to drink nothing cold, and above all things
never to indulge in the amusement of cold bathing.

Such were the circumstances under which Osbome first appeared to the
reader, who may now understand the extent of his alarm on feeling
himself so suddenly and seriously affected by his generosity in rescuing
the wounded dove. His mere illness on this occasion was a matter of much
less anxiety to himself than the alarm which he knew it would occasion
his parents and sister. On his reaching home he mentioned the incident
which occurred, admitted that he had been rather warm on going into the
water, and immediately went to bed. Medical aid was forthwith procured,
and although the physician assured them that there appeared nothing
serious in his immediate state, yet was his father's house a house of
wail and sorrow.

The next day the Sinclairs, having heard in reply to their inquiries
through the servant who had been sent home with his apparel, that he was
ill, the worthy clergyman lost no time in paying his parents a visit
on the occasion. In this he expressed his regret, and that also of his
whole family, that any circumstance relating to them should have been
the means, even accidentally, of affecting the young gentleman's health.
It was not, however, until he dwelt upon the occurrence in terms of
approbation, and placed the boy's conduct in a generous light, that he
was enabled to appreciate the depth and tenderness of their affection
for him. The mother's tears flowed in silence on hearing this fresh
proof of his amiable spirit, and the father, with a foreboding heart,
related to Mr. Sinclair the substance of that which we have detailed to
the reader.

Such was the incident which brought these two families acquainted, and
ultimately ripened their intimacy into friendship.

Much sympathy was felt for young Osborne by the other members of
Mr. Sinclair's household, especially as his modest and unobtrusive
deportment, joined to his extraordinary beauty, had made so singularly
favorable an impression upon them. Is or was the history of that
insidious malady, which had already been so fatal to his sister and
brother, calculated to lessen the interest which his first appearance
had excited. There was one young heart among them which sank, as if the
Weight of death had come over it, on hearing this melancholy account
of him whose image was now for ever the star of her fate, whether for
happiness or sorrow. From the moment their eyes had met in those few
shrinking but flashing glances by which the spirit of love conveys its
own secret, she felt the first painful transports of the new affection,
and retired to solitude with the arrow that struck her so deeply yet
quivering in her bosom.

The case of our fair girl differed widely from that of many young
persons, in whose heart the passion of love lurks unknown for a time,
throwing its roseate shadows of delight and melancholy over their peace,
whilst they themselves feel unable in the beginning to develop those
strange sensations which take away from their pillows the unbroken
slumber of early life.

Jane from the moment her eyes rested on Osborne felt and was conscious
of feeling the influence of a youth so transcendently fascinating. Her
love broke not forth gradually like the trembling light that brightens
into the purple flush of morning; neither was it fated to sink calm and
untroubled like the crimson tints that die only when the veil of night,
like the darkness of death, wraps them in its shadow. Alas no, it sprung
from her heart in all the noontide strength of maturity--a full-grown
passion, incapable of self-restraint, and conscious only of the wild
and novel delight arising from its own indulgence. Night and day that
graceful form hovered before her, encircled in the halo of her young
imagination, with a lustre that sparkled beyond the light of human
beauty. We know that the eye when it looks steadily upon a cloudless
sun, is incapable for some time afterwards of seeing any other object
distinctly; and that in whatever direction it turns that bright image
floats incessantly before it--nor will be removed even although the eye
itself is closed against its radiance. So was it with Jane. Asleep or
awake, in society or in solitude, the vision with which her soul held
communion never for a moment withdrew from before her, until at length
her very heart became sick, and her fancy entranced, by the excess of
her youthful and unrestrained attachment. She could not despair, she
could scarcely doubt; for on thinking of the blushing glances so rapidly
stolen at herself, and of the dark brilliant eye from whence they came,
she knew that the soul of him she loved spoke to her in a language that
was mutually understood. These impressions, it is true, were felt in
her moments of ecstacy, but then came, notwithstanding this confidence,
other moments when maidenly timidity took the crown of rejoicing off her
head, and darkened her youthful brow with that uncertainty, which, while
it depresses hope, renders the object that is loved a thousand times
dearer to the heart.

To others, at the present stage of her affection, she appeared more
silent than usual, and evidently fond of solitude, a trait which they
had not observed in her before. But these were slight symptoms of what
she felt; for alas, the day was soon to come that was to overshadow
their hearts forever--never, never more were they and she, in the light
of their own innocence, to sing like the morning stars together, or to
lay their untroubled heads in the slumbers of the happy.

More than a month had now elapsed since the first appearance of Osborne
as one of the _dramatis personae_ of our narrative. A slight fever,
attended with less effect upon the lungs than his parents anticipated,
had passed off, and he was once more able to go abroad and take exercise
in the open air. The two families were now in the habit of visiting each
other almost daily; and what tended more and more to draw closer the
bonds of good feeling between them, was the fact of the Osbornes being
members of the same creed, and attendants at Mr. Sinclair's place of
worship. Jane, while Charles Osborne was yet ill, had felt a childish
diminution of her affection for her convalescent dove, whilst at the
same time something whispered to her that it possessed a stronger
interest in her heart than it had ever done before. This may seem a
paradox to such of our readers as have never been in love; but it is not
at all irreconcilable to the analogous and often conflicting states of
feeling produced by that strange and mysterious passion. The innocent
girl was wont, as frequently as she could without exciting notice, to
steal away to the garden, or the fields, or the river side, accompanied
by her mute, companion, to which with pouting caresses she would address
a series of rebukes of having been the means of occasioning the illness
of him she loved.

"Alas, Ariel, little do you know, sweet bird, what anxiety you have
caused your mistress--if he dies I shall never love you more? Yes, coo,
and flutter--but I do not care for you; no, that kiss won't satisfy me
until he is recovered--then I shall be friends with you, and you shall
be my own Ariel again."

She would then pat it petulantly; and the beautiful creature would sink
its head, and slightly expand its wings, as if conscious that there was
a change of mood in her affection.

But again the innocent remorse of her girlish heart would flow forth in
terms of tenderness and endearment; again would I she pat and cherish
it; and with the artless I caprice of childhood exclaim--

"No, my own Ariel, the fault was not yours; come, I shall love you--and
I will not be angry again; even if you were not good I would love you
for his sake. You are now dearer to me a thousand times than you ever
were; but alas! Ariel, I am sick, I am sick, and no longer happy. Where
is my lightness of heart, my sweet bird, and where, oh where is the joy
I used to feel?"

Even this admission, which in the midst of solitude could reach no other
human ear, would startle the bashful creature into alarm; and whilst her
cheek became alternately pale and crimson at such an avowal thus uttered
aloud, she would wipe away the tears that arose to her eyes whenever the
depths of her affection were stirred by those pensive broodings which
gave its sweetest charm to youthful love.

In thus seeking solitude, it is not to be imagined that our young
heroine was drawn thither by a love of contemplating nature in those
fresher aspects which present themselves in the stillness of her remote
recesses. She sought not for their own sakes the shades of the grove,
the murmuring cascade, nor the voice of the hidden rivulet that
occasionally stole out from its leafy cover, and ran in music towards
the ampler stream of the valley.

No, no; over her heart and eye the spirit of their beauty passed idly
and unfelt. All of external life that she had been wont to love and
admire gave her pleasure no more. The natural arbors of woodbine, the
fairy dells, and the wild flowers that peeped in unknown sweetness about
the hedges, the fairy fingers, the blue-bells, the cow-slips, with many
others of her fragrant and graceful favorites, all, all, charmed her,
alas, no more. Nor at home, where every voice was tenderness, and every
word affection, did there exist in her stricken heart that buoyant sense
of enjoyment which had made her youth like the music of a brook, where
every thing that broke the smoothness of its current only turned it
into melody. The morning and evening prayer--the hymn of her sister
voices--their simple spirit of tranquil devotion--and the touching
solemnity of her father, worshipping God upon the altar of his own
heart--all, all this, alas--alas, charmed her no more. Oh, no--no;
many motives conspired to send her into solitude, that she might in the
sanctity of unreproving nature cherish her affection for the youth whose
image was ever, ever before her. At home such was the timid delicacy of
her love, that she felt as if its indulgence even in the stillest depths
of her own heart, was disturbed by the conversation of her kindred, and
the familiar habits of domestic life. Her father's, her brother's, and
her sisters' voices, produced in her a feeling of latent shame, which,
when she supposed for a moment that they could guess her attachment,
filled her with anxiety and confusion. She experienced besides a sense
of uneasiness on reflecting that she practiced, for the first time in
their presence, a dissimulation so much at variance with the opinion she
knew they entertained of her habitual candor. It was, in fact, the first
secret she had ever concealed from them; and now the suppression of it
in her own bosom made her feel as if she had withdrawn that confidence
which was due to the love they bore her. This was what kept her so much
in her own room, or sent her abroad to avoid all that had a tendency
to repress the indulgence of an attachment that had left in her heart a
capacity for no other enjoyment. But in solitude she was far from every
thing that could disturb those dreams in which the tranquility of nature
never failed to entrance her. There was where the mysterious spirit
that raises the soul above the impulses of animal life, mingled with
her being--and poured upon her affection the elemental purity of that
original love which in the beginning preceded human guilt.

It is, indeed, far from the contamination of society--in the stillness
of solitude when the sentiment of love comes abroad before its passion,
that the heart can be said to realize the object of its devotion, and to
forget that its indulgence can ever be associated with error. This is,
truly, the angelic love of youth and innocence; and such was the nature
of that which the beautiful girl felt. Indeed, her clay was so divinely
tempered, that the veil which covered her pure and ethereal spirit,
almost permitted the light within to be visible, and exhibited the
workings of a soul that struggled to reach the object whose communion
with itself seemed to constitute the sole end of its existence.

The evening on which Jane and Charles Osborne met for the first time,
unaccompanied by their friends, was one of those to which the power of
neither pen nor pencil can do justice. The sun was slowly sinking among
a pile of those soft crimson clouds, behind which fancy is so apt to
picture to itself the regions of calm delight that are inhabited by the
happy spirits of the blest; the sycamore and hawthorn were yet musical
with the hum of bees, busy in securing their evening burthen for the
hive. Myriads of winged insects were sporting in the sunbeams; the
melancholy plaint of the ringdove came out sweetly from the trees,
mingled with the songs of other birds, and the still sweeter voice of
some happy groups of children at play in the distance. The light of the
hour, in its subdued but golden tone, fell with singular clearness upon
all nature, giving to it that tranquil beauty which makes every thing
the eye rests upon glide with quiet rapture into the heart. The moth
butterflies were fluttering over the meadows, and from the low stretches
of softer green rose the thickly-growing grass-stalks, laying their
slender ear's bent with the mellow burthen of wild honey--the ambrosial
feast for the lips of innocence and childhood. It was, indeed, an
evening when love would bring forth its sweetest memories, and dream
itself into those ecstacies of tenderness that flow from the mingled
sensations of sadness and delight.

It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to see on this earth a young
creature, whose youth and beauty, and slender grace of person gave her
more the appearance of some visionary spirit, too exquisitely ideal for
human life. Indeed, she seemed to be tinted with the hues of heaven, and
never did a mortal being exist in such fine and harmonious keeping with
the scene in which she moved. So light and sylph-like was her figure,
though tall, that the eye almost feared she would dissolve from before
it, and leave nothing to gaze at but the earth on which she trod. Yet
was there still apparent in her something that preserved, with singular
power, the delightful reality that she was of humanity, and subject to
all those softer influences that breathe their music so sweetly over the
chords of the human heart. The delicate bloom of her cheek, shaded
away as it was, until it melted into the light that sparkled from her
complexion--the snowy forehead, the flashing eye, in which sat the very
soul of love--the lips, blushing of sweets--her whole person breathing
the warmth of youth, and feeling, and so characteristic in the easiness
of its motions of that gracile flexibility that has never been known
to exist separate from the power of receiving varied and profound
emotions--all this told the spectator, too truly, that the lovely being
before him was not of another sphere, but one of the most delightful
that ever appeared in this.

But hush!--here is a strain of music! Oh! what lips breathed forth that
gush of touching melody which flows in such linked sweetness from the
flute of an unseen performer? How soft, how gentle, but oh, how very
mournful are the notes! Alas! they are steeped in sorrow, and melt away
in the plaintive cadences of despair, until they mingle with silence.
Surely, surely, they come from one whose heart has been brought low by
the ruined hopes of an unrequited passion. Yes, fair girl, thou at least
dost so interpret them; but why this sympathy in one so young? Why is
thy bright eye dewy with tears for the imaginary sorrows of another?
And again--but ha!--why that flash of delight and terror?--that sudden
suffusion of red over thy face and neck--and even now, that paleness
like death! Thy heart, thy heart--why does it throb, and why do thy
knees totter? Alas! it is even so; the Endymion of thy dreams, as
beautiful as even thou thyself in thy purple dawn of womanhood,--he
from whom thou now shrinkest, yet whom thou dreadest not to meet, is
approaching, and bears in his beauty the charm that will darken thy
destiny.

The appearance of Osborne, unaccompanied, taught this young creature
to know the full extent of his influence over her. Delight, terror, and
utter confusion of thought and feeling, seized upon her the moment he
became visible. She wished herself at home, but had not power to go;
she blushed, she trembled, and, in the tumult of the moment, lost all
presence of mind and self-possession. He had come from behind a hedge,
on the path-way along which she walked, and was consequently approaching
her, so that it was evident they must meet. On seeing her he ceased to
play, paused a moment, and were it not that it might appear cold, and
rather remarkable, he, too, would have retraced his steps homewards. In
truth, both felt equally confused and equally agitated, for, although
such an interview had been, for some time previously, the dearest wish
of their hearts, yet would they both almost have felt relieved, had they
had an opportunity of then escaping it. Their first words were uttered
in a low, hesitating voice, amid pauses occasioned by the necessity
of collecting their scattered thoughts, and with countenances deeply
blushing from a consciousness of what they felt. Osborne turned back,
mechanically, and accompanied her in her walk. After this there was
a silence for some time, for neither had courage to renew the
conversation. At length Osborne, in a faltering voice addressed her:

"Your dove," said he, "is quite recovered, I presume."

"Oh, yes," she replied, "it is perfectly well again."

"It is an exceedingly beautiful bird, and remarkably docile."

"I have had little difficulty in training it," she returned, and then
added, very timidly, "it is also very affectionate."

The youth's eyes sparkled, as if he were about to indulge in some
observation suggested by her reply, but, fearing to give it expression,
he paused again; in a few minutes, however, he added--

"I think there is nothing that gives one so perfect an idea of purity
and innocence as a snow-white dove, unless I except a young and
beautiful girl, such as--"

He glanced at her as he spoke, and their eyes met, but in less than a
moment they were withdrawn, and cast upon the earth.

"And of meekness and holiness too," she observed, after a little.

"True; but perhaps I ought to make another exception," he added,
alluding to the term by which she herself was then generally known. As
he spoke, his voice expressed considerable hesitation.

"Another exception," she answered, inquiringly, "it would be difficult,
I think, to find any other emblem of innocence so appropriate as a
dove."

"Is not a Fawn still more so," he replied, "it is so gentle and meek,
and its motions are so full of grace and timidity, and beauty. Indeed
I do not wonder, when an individual of your sex resembles it in the
qualities I have mentioned, that the name is sometimes applied to her."

The tell-tale cheek of the girl blushed a recognition of the compliment
implied in the words, and after a short silence, she said, in a tone
that was any thing but indifferent, and with a view of changing the
conversation--

"I hope you are quite recovered from your illness."

"With the exception of a very slight cough, I am," he replied.

"I think," she observed, "that you look somewhat paler than you did."

"That paleness does not proceed from indisposition, but from a far
different"--he paused again, and looked evidently abashed. In the course
of a minute, however, he added, "yes, I know I am pale, but not because
I am unwell, for my health is nearly, if not altogether, restored, but
because I am unhappy."

"Strange," said Jane, "to see one unhappy at your years."

"I think I know my own character and disposition well," he replied; "my
temperament is naturally a melancholy one; the frame of my mind is
like that of my body, very delicate, and capable of being affected by a
thousand slight influences which pass over hearts of a stronger mould,
without ever being felt. Life to me, I know, will be productive of much
pain, and much enjoyment, while its tenure lasts, but that, indeed,
will not be long. My sands are measured, for I feel a presentiment, a
mournful and prophetic impression, that I am doomed to go down into an
early grave."

The tone of passionate enthusiasm which pervaded these words, uttered
as they were in a voice wherein pathos and melody were equally blended,
appeared to be almost too much for a creature whose sympathy in all
his moods and feelings was then so deep and congenial. She felt some
difficulty in repressing her tears, and said, in a voice which no effort
could keep firm.

"You ought not to indulge in those gloomy forebodings; you should
struggle against them, otherwise they will distress your mind, and
injure your health."

"Oh, you do not know," he proceeded, his eyes sparkling with that
light which is so often the beacon of death--"you do not know the
fatal fascination by which a mind, set to the sorrows of a melancholy
temperament, is charmed out of its strength. But no matter how dark may
be my dreams--there is one light for ever upon them--one image ever,
ever before me--one figure of grace and beauty--oh, how could I deny
myself the contemplation of a vision that pours into my soul a portion
of itself, and effaces: every other object but an entrancing sense of
its own presence. I cannot, I cannot--it bears me away into a happiness
that is full of sadness--where I indulge alone, without knowing why, in
my feast of tears'--happy! happy! so I think, and so I feel; yet why
is my heart sunk, and why are all my visions filled with death and the
grave?"

"Oh, do not talk so frequently of death," replied the beautiful girl,
"surely you need not fear it for a long while. This morbid tone of mind
will pass away when you grow into better health and strength."

"Is not this hour calm?" said he, flashing his dark eyes full upon her,
"see how beautiful the sun sinks in the west;--alas! so I should wish to
die--as calm, and the moral lustre of my life as radiant."

"And so you shall," said Jane, in a voice full of that delightful spirit
of consolation which, proceeding from such lips, breathes the most
affecting power of sympathy, "so you shall, but like him, not until
after the close of a long and well-spent life."

"That--that," said he, "was only a passing thought. Yes, the hour is
calm, but even in such stillness, do you not observe that the aspen
there to our left, this moment quivers to the breezes which we
cannot feel, and by which not a leaf of any other tree about us is
stirred--such I know myself to be, an aspen among men, stirred into
joy or sorrow, whilst the hearts of others are at rest. Oh, how can my
foretaste of life be either bright or cheerful, for when I am capable of
being moved by the very breathings of passion, what must I not feel
in the blast, and in the storm--even now, even now!"--The boy, here
overcome by the force of his own melancholy enthusiasm, paused abruptly,
and Jane, after several attempts to speak, at last said, in a voice
scarcely audible--

"Is not hope always better than despair?"

Osborne instantly fixed his eyes upon her, and saw, that although her's
were bent upon the earth, her face had become overspread with a deep
blush. While he looked she raised them, but after a single glance, at
once quick and timid, she withdrew them again, a still deeper blush
mantling on her cheek. He now felt a sudden thrill of rapture fall upon
his heart, and rush, almost like a suffocating sensation, to his throat;
his being became for a moment raised to an ecstacy too intense for the
power of description to portray, and, were it not for the fear which
ever accompanies the disclosure of first and youthful love, the tears of
exulting delight would have streamed down his cheeks.

Both had reached a little fairy dell of vivid green, concealed by trees
on every side, and in the middle of which rose a large yew, around whose
trunk had been built a seat of natural turf whereon those who strolled
about the ground might rest, when heated or fatigued by exercise or the
sun. Here the girl sat down.

A change had now come over both. The gloom of the boy's temperament was
gone, and his spirit caught its mood from that of his companion. Each at
the moment breathed the low, anxious, and tender timidity of love, in
it purest character. The souls of both vibrated to each other, and felt
depressed with that sweetest emotion which derives all its power from
the consciousness that its participation is mutual. Osborne spoke low,
and his voice trembled; the girl was silent, but her bosom panted, and
her frame shook from head to foot. At length, Osborne spoke.

"I sometimes sit here alone, and amuse myself with my flute; but of
late--of late--I can hear no music that is not melancholy."

"I, too, prefer mournful--mournful music," replied Jane. "That was a
beautiful air you played just now."

Osborne put the flute to his lips, and commenced playing over again the
air she had praised; but, on glancing at the fair girl, he perceived
her eyes fixed upon him with a look of such deep and devoted passion as
utterly overcame him. Her eyes, as before, were immediately withdrawn,
but there dwelt again upon her burning cheek such a consciousness of her
love as could not, for a moment, be mistaken. In fact she betrayed all
the confused symptoms of one who felt that the state of her heart had
been discovered. Osborne ceased playing; for such was his agitation that
he scarcely knew what he thought or did.

"I cannot go on," said he in a voice which equally betrayed the state
of his heart; "I cannot play;" and at the same time he seated himself
beside her.

Jane rose as he spoke, and in a broken voice, full of an expression like
distress, said hastily:

"It is time I should go;--I am,--I am too long out."

Osborne caught her hand, and in words that burned with the deep and
melting contagion of his passion, said simply:

"Do not go:--oh do not yet go!"

She looked full upon him, and perceived that as he spoke his face became
deadly pale, as if her words were to seal his happiness or misery.

"Oh do not leave me now," he pleaded; "do not go, and my life may yet be
happy."

"I must," she replied, with great difficulty; "I cannot stay; I do not
wish you to be unhappy;" and whilst saying this, the tears that ran in
silence down her cheeks proved too clearly how dear his happiness must
ever be to her.

Osborne's arm glided round her waist, and she resumed her seat,--or
rather tottered into it.

"You are in tears," he exclaimed. "Oh could it be true! Is it not, my
beloved girl? It is--it is--love! Oh surely, surely it must--it must!"

She sobbed aloud once or twice; and, as he kissed her unresisting lips,
she murmured out, "It is; it is; I love you."

Oh life! how dark and unfathomable are thy mysteries! And why is it that
thou permittest the course of true love, like this, so seldom to run
smooth, when so many who, uniting through the impulse of sordid passion,
sink into a state of obtuse indifference, over which the lights and
shadows that touch thee into thy finest perceptions of enjoyment pass in
vain.

It is a singular fact, but no less true than singular, that since the
world began there never was known any instance of an anxiety, on the
part of youthful lovers, to prolong to an immoderate extent the scene
in which the first mutual avowal of their passions takes place. The
excitement is too profound, and the waste of those delicate spirits,
which are expended in such interviews, is much too great to permit the
soul to bear such an excess of happiness long. Independently of this,
there is associated with it an ultimate enjoyment, for which the lovers
immediately fly to solitude; there, in the certainty of waking bliss, to
think over and over again of all that has occurred between them, and to
luxuriate in the conviction, that at length the heart has not another
wish, but sinks into the solitary charm which expands it with such a
sense of rapturous and exulting delight.

The interview between our lovers was, consequently, not long. The secret
of their hearts being now known, each felt anxious to retire, and to
look with a miser's ecstacy upon the delicious hoard which the scene
we have just described had created. Jane did not reach home until the
evening devotions of the family were over, and this was the first time
she had ever, to their knowledge, been absent from them before. Borne
away by the force of what had just occurred, she was proceeding up to
her own room, after reaching home, when Mr. Sinclair, who had remarked
her absence, desired that she be called into the drawing-room.

"It is the first neglect," he observed, "of a necessary duty, and it
would be wrong in me to let it pass without at least pointing it out
to the dear child as an error, and knowing from her own lips why it has
happened."

Terror and alarm, like what might be supposed to arise from the
detection of secret guilt, seized upon the young creature so violently
that she had hardly strength to enter the drawing-room without support:
her face became the image of death, and her whole frame tottered and
trembled visibly.

"Jane, my dear, why were you absent from prayers this evening?" inquired
her father, with his usual mildness of manner.

This question, to one who had never yet been, in the slightest instance,
guilty of falsehood, was indeed a terrible one; and especially to a girl
so extremely timid as was this his best beloved daughter.

"Papa," she at last replied, "I was out walking;" but as she spoke
there was that in her voice and manner which betrayed the guilt of an
insincere reply.

"I know, my dear, you were; but although you have frequently been out
walking, yet I do not remember that you ever stayed, away from our
evening worship before. Why is this?"

Her father's question was repeated in vain. She hung her head and
returned no answer. She tried to speak, but from her parched lips not
a word could proceed. She felt as if all the family that moment were
conscious of the occurrence between her and her lover; and if the wish
could have relieved her, she would almost have wished to die, so much
did she shrink abashed in their presence.

"Tell me, my daughter," proceeded her father, more seriously, "has your
absence been occasioned by anything that you are ashamed or afraid to
mention? From me, Jane, you ought to have no secrets;--you are yet too
young to think away from your father's heart and from your mother's
also;--speak candidly, my child,--speak candidly,--I expect it."

As he uttered the last words, the head of their beautiful flower sank
upon her bosom, and in a moment she lay insensible upon the sofa on
which she had been sitting.

This was a shock for which neither the father nor the family were
prepared. William flew to her,--all of them crowded about her, and
scarcely had he raised that face so pale, but now so mournfully
beautiful in its insensibility, when her mother and sisters burst into
tears and wailings, for they feared at the moment that their beloved
one must have been previously seized with sudden illness, and was then
either taken, or about to be taken from their eyes for ever. By the
coolness of her father, however, they were directed how to restore her,
in which, after a lapse of not less than ten minutes, they succeeded.

When she recovered, her mother folded her in her arms, and her sisters
embraced her with tenderness and tears. Her father then gently caught
her hand in his, and said with much affection:

"Jane, my child, you are ill. Why not have told us so?"

The beautiful girl knelt before him for a moment, but again rose up, and
hiding her head in his bosom, exclaimed--weeping--

"Papa, bless me, oh, bless me, and forgive me."

"I do; I do," said the old man; and as he spoke a few large tears
trickled down his cheeks, and fell upon her golden locks.




PART II.


It is a singular fact, but one which we know to be true, that not only
the affection of parents, but that of brothers and sisters, goes
down with greater tenderness to the youngest of the family, all other
circumstances being equal. This is so universally felt and known, that
it requires no further illustration from us. At home, Jane Sinclair
was loved more devotedly in consequence of being the most innocent and
beautiful of her father's children; in addition to this, however, she
was cherished with that peculiar sensibility of attachment by which the
human heart is always swayed towards its youngest and its last.

On witnessing her father's tenderness, she concealed her face in his
bosom, and wept for some time in silence, and by a gentle pressure of
her delicate arms, as they encircled his neck, intimated her sense of
his affectionate indulgence towards her; and perhaps, could it have
been understood, a tacit acknowledgment of her own unworthiness on that
occasion to receive it.

At length, she said, after an effort to suppress her tears, "Papa, I
will go to bed."

"Do, my love; and Jane, forget not to address the Throne of God before
you sleep."

"I did not intend to neglect it, papa. Mamma, come with me." She then
kissed her sisters and bade good-night to William; after which she
withdrew, accompanied by her mother, whilst the eyes of those who
remained were fixed upon her with love and pride and admiration.

"Mamma," said she, when they reached the apartment, "allow me to sleep
alone tonight."

"Jane, your mind appears to be depressed, darling," replied her mother;
"has anything disturbed you, or are you really ill?"

"I am quite well, mamma, and not at all depressed; but do allow me to
sleep in the closet bed."

"No, my dear, Agnes will sleep there, and you can sleep in your own as
usual; the poor girl will wonder why you leave her, Jane; she will feel
so lonely, too."

"But, mamma, it would gratify me very much, at least for this night. I
never wished to sleep away from Agnes before; and I am certain she will
excuse me when she knows I prefer it."

"Well, my love, of course Jean have no objection; I only fear you are
not so well as you imagine yourself. At all events, Jane, remember your
father's advice to pray to God; and remember this, besides, that from
me at least you ought to have no secrets. Good-night, dear, and may the
Lord take care of you!"

She then kissed her with an emotion of sorrow for which she could
scarcely account, and passed down to the room wherein the other members
of the family were assembled.

"I know not what is wrong with her," she observed, in reply to their
enquiries. "She declares she is perfectly well, and that her mind is not
at all depressed."

"In that I agree with her," said William; "her eye occasionally sparkled
with something that resembled joy more than depression."

"She begged of me to let her sleep alone to-night," continued the
mother; "so that you, Agnes, must lie in the closet bed."

"She must, certainly, be unwell then," replied Agnes, "or she would
hardly leave me. Indeed I know that her spirits have not been so good of
late as usual. Formerly we used to chat ourselves asleep, but for some
weeks past she has been quite changed, and seldom spoke at all after
going to bed. Neither did she sleep so well latterly as she used to."

"She is, indeed, a delicate flower," observed her father, "and a very
slight blast, poor thing, will make her droop--droop perhaps into an
early grave!"

"Do not speak so gloomily, my dear Henry," said her mother. "What is
there in her particular case to justify any such apprehension?"

"Her health has been always good, too," observed Maria; "but the fact
is, we love her so affectionately that many things disturb us about her
which we would never feel if we loved her less."

"Mary," said her father, "you have in a few words expressed the true
state of our feelings with respect to the dear child. We shall find
her, I trust, in good health and spirits in the morning; and please the
Divine Will, all will again be well--but what's the matter with you,
Agnes?"

Mr. Sinclair had, a moment before, observed that an expression of
thought, blended with sorrow, overshadowed the face of his second
daughter. The girl, on hearing her father's enquiry, looked mournfully
upon him, whilst the tears ran silently down her cheeks.

"I will go to her," said she, "and stay with her if she lets me. Oh,
papa, why talk of an early grave for her? How could we lose her? I could
not--and I cannot bear even to think of it."

She instantly rose and proceeded to Jane's room, but in a few minutes
returned, saying, "I found her at prayers, papa."

"God bless her, God bless her! I knew she would not voluntarily neglect
so sacred a duty. As she wishes to be alone, it is better not to disturb
her; solitude and quiet will no doubt contribute to her composure, and
it is probably for this purpose that she wishes to be left to herself."

After this the family soon retired to bed, with the exception of
Mr. Sinclair himself, who, contrary to his practice, remained for a
considerable time longer up than usual. It appeared, indeed, as if the
shadow of some coming calamity had fallen upon their hearts, or that the
affection they had entertained for her was so mysteriously deep as to
produce that prophetic sympathy which is often known to operate in a
presentiment of sorrow that never fails to be followed by disaster. It
is difficult to account for this singular succession of cause to effect,
as they act upon our emotions, except probably by supposing that it is
an unconscious development of those latent faculties which are decreed
to expand into a full growth in a future state of existence. Be this
as it may, these loving relatives experienced upon that night a mood of
mind such as they had never before known, even when the hand of death
had taken a brother and sister from among them. It was not grief but a
wild kind of dread, slight it is true, but distinct in its character,
and not dissimilar to that fear which falls upon the spirits during one
of those glooms that precede some dark and awful convulsion of nature.
Her father remained up, as we have said, longer than the rest, and in
the silence which succeeded their retirement for the night, his voice
could be occasionally heard in deep and earnest supplication. It was
evident that he had recourse to prayer; and by some of the expressions
caught from time to time, they gathered that "his dear child," and "her
peace of mind" were the object of the foreboding father's devotions.

Jane's distress, at concealing the cause of her absence from prayers,
though acute at the moment of enquiry, was nevertheless more transient
than one might suppose from the alarming effects it produced. Her mind
was at the time in a state of tumult and excitement, such as she had
never till then experienced, and the novel guilt of dissimulation, by
superinducing her first impression of deliberate crime, opposed itself
so powerfully to the exulting sense of her newborn happiness, that both
produced a shock of conflicting emotions which a young mind, already so
much exhausted, could not resist. She felt, therefore, that a strange
darkness shrouded her intellect, in which all distinct traces of
thought, and all memory of the past were momentarily lost. Her frame,
too, at the best but slender and much enfeebled by the preceding
interview with Osborne, and her present embarrassment, could not bear
up against this chaotic struggle between delight and pain. It was, no
doubt, impossible for her relatives to comprehend all this, and hence
their alarm. She was too pure and artless to be suspected of concealing
the truth; and they consequently entertained not the slightest suspicion
of that kind; but still their affections were aroused, and what might
have terminated in an ordinary manner, ended in that unusual mood we
have described.

With a scrupulous attention to her father's precept, as well as from a
principle of early and sincere piety, she strove on reaching her bedroom
to compose her mind in prayer, and to beg the pardon of Heaven for her
wilful suppression of the truth. This was a task, however, to which
she was altogether unequal. In vain she uttered words expressive of her
sorrow, and gave language to sentiments of deep repentance; there was
but one idea, but one image in her mind, viz.: her beautiful boy, and
the certainty that she was the object of his love. Again and again she
attempted to pray, but still with the same success. It was to no purpose
that she resolved to banish him from her thoughts, until at least the
solemn act of her evening-worship should be concluded; for ere she had
uttered half a sentence the image would return, as if absolutely to mock
her devotions. In this manner she continued for some time, striving
to advance with a sincere heart in her address to heaven; again
recommencing with a similar purpose, and as often losing herself in
those visions that wrapped her spirit in their transports. At length she
arose, and for a moment felt a deep awe fall upon her. The idea that
she could not pray, seemed to her as a punishment annexed, by God to
her crime of having tampered with the love of truth, and disregarded
her father's injunctions not to violate it. But this, also, soon passed
away: she lay down, and at once surrendered her heart and thought and
fancy to the power of that passion, which, like the jealous tyrant of
the East, seemed on this occasion resolved to bear no virtue near the
heart in which it sat enthroned. Such, however, was not its character,
as the reader will learn when he proceeds; true love being in our
opinion rather the guardian of the other virtues than their foe.

The next morning, when Jane awoke, the event of yesterday flashed on her
memory with a thrill of pleasure that made her start up in a recumbent
posture in the bed. Her heart bounded, her pulse beat high, and a sudden
sensation of hysterical delight rushed to her throat with a transport
that would have been painful, did she not pass out of a state of such
panting ecstacy and become dissolved in tears. She wept, but how far
did she believe the cause of her emotion to be removed from sorrow? She
wept, yet alas! alas! never did tears of such delight flow from a source
that drew a young heart onward to greater darkness and desolation. Weep
on, fair girl, in thy happiness; for the day will come when thou will
not be able to find one tear in thy misery!

Her appearance the next morning exhibited to the family no symptoms
of illness. On the contrary, she never looked better, indeed seldom so
well. Her complexion was clearer than usual, her spirit more animated,
and the dancing light of her eye plainly intimated by its sparkling that
her young heart was going on the way of its love rejoicing. Her family
were agreeably surprised at this, especially when they reflected upon
their anxiety concerning her on the preceding night. To her distress
on that occasion they made not the slightest allusion; they felt it
sufficient that the beloved of their hearts was well, and that from the
evident flow of her spirits there existed no rational ground for any
apprehension respecting her. After breakfast she sat sewing for some
time with her sisters, but it was evident that her mind was not yet
sufficiently calm to permit her as formerly to sustain a proper part
in their conversation. Ever and anon they could observe by the singular
light which sparkled in her eyes, as with a sudden rush of joy, that her
mind, was engaged on some other topic, and this at a moment when some
appeal or interrogatory to herself rendered such abstracted enjoyment
more obvious. Sensible, therefore, of her incompetency as yet to
regulate her imagination so as to escape notice, she withdrew in about
an hour to her own room, there once more to give loose to indulgence.

Our readers may perceive that the position of Jane Sinclair, in her own
family, was not very favorable to the formation of a firm character.
The regulation of a mind so imaginative, and of feelings so lively and
susceptible, required a hand of uncommon skill and delicacy. Indeed her
case was one of unusual difficulty. In the first place, her meekness and
extreme sweetness of temper rendered it almost impossible in a family
where her own qualities predominated, to find any deviation from
duty which might be seized upon without harshness as a pretext for
inculcating those precautionary principles that were calculated to
strengthen the weak points which her character may have presented.
Even those weak points, if at the time they could be so termed, were
perceptible only in the exercise of her virtues, so that it was a matter
of some risk, especially in the case of one so young, to reprove an
excess on the right side, lest in doing so you checked the influence of
the virtue that accompanied it. Such errors, if they can be called so,
when occurring in the conduct of those whom we love, are likely to call
forth any thing but censure. It is naturally supposed, and in general
with too much truth, that time and experience will remove the excess,
and leave the virtue not more than equal to the demands of life upon
it. Her mother, however, was, as the reader may have found, by no means
ignorant of those traits a the constitution of her mind from which
danger or happiness might ultimately be apprehended; neither did he
look on them With indifference. In truth, they troubled him much, and
on more than one occasion he scrupled not fully to express his fears of,
their result. It was he, the reader perceives, who on the evening of her
first interview with Osborne, gave so gloomy a tone to the feelings
of the family, and impressed them at all events more deeply than they
otherwise would have felt with a vague presentiment of some unknown evil
that was to befall her. She was, however, what is termed, the pet of
the family, the centre to which all their affections turned; and as she
herself felt conscious of this, there is little doubt that the extreme
indulgence, and almost blameable tenderness which they exercised towards
her, did by imperceptible degrees disqualify her from undergoing with
firmness those conflicts of the heart, to which a susceptibility of the
finer emotions rendered her peculiarly liable. Indeed among the various
errors prevalent in domestic life, there is scarcely one that has
occasioned more melancholy consequences than that of carrying indulgence
towards a favorite child too far; and creating, under the slightest
instances of self-denial, a sensitiveness or impatience, arising from
a previous habit of being gratified in all the whims and caprices, of
childhood or youth. The fate of favorite children in life is almost
proverbially unhappy, and we doubt not that if the various lunatic
receptacles were examined, the malady, in a majority of cases, might be
traced to an excess of indulgence and want of proper discipline in early
life. Had Mr. Sinclair insisted on knowing from his daughter's lips the
cause of her absence from prayers, and given a high moral proof of the
affection he bore her, it is probable that the consciousness on her part
of his being cognizant of her passion, would have kept it so far within
bounds as to submit to the control of reason instead of ultimately
subverting it. This, however, he unhappily omitted to do, not because
he was at all ignorant that a strict sense of duty, and a due regard for
his daughter's welfare, demanded it; but because her distress, and the
childlike simplicity with which she cast herself upon his bosom, touched
his spirit, and drew forth all the affection of a parent who "loved not
wisely but too well."

Let not my readers, however, condemn him too harshly for this, for alas,
he paid, in the bitterness of a father's misery, a woeful and mysterious
penalty of a father's weakness. His beloved one went before, and the old
man could not remain behind her; but their sorrows have passed away, and
both now enjoy that peace, which, for the last few years of their lives,
the world did not give them.

From this time forth Jane's ear listened only to the music of a happy
heart, and her eye saw nothing but the beauty of that vision which shone
in her pure bosom like the star of evening in some limpid current that
glides smoothly between rustic meadows, on whose green banks the heart
is charmed into happiness by the distant hum of pastoral life.

Love however will not be long without its object, nor can the soul
be happy in the absence of its counterpart. For some time after the
interview in which the passion of our young lovers was revealed, Jane
found solitude to be the same solace to her love, that human sympathy is
to affliction. The certainty that she was now beloved, caused her heart
to lapse into those alternations of repose and enjoyment which above all
other states of feeling nourish its affections. Indeed the change was
surprising which she felt within her and around her. On looking back,
all that portion of her life that had passed before her attachment to
Osborne, seemed dark and without any definite purpose. She wondered at
it as at a mystery which she could not solve; it was only now that she
lived; her existence commenced, she thought, with her passion, and with
it only she was satisfied it could cease. Nature wore in her eyes a new
aspect, was clothed with such beauty, and breathed such a spirit of love
and harmony, as she only perceived now for the first time. Her parents
were kinder and better she thought than they had before appeared to her,
and her sisters and brother seemed endued with warmer affections and
blighter virtues than they had ever possessed. Every thing near her and
about her partook in a more especial manner of this delightful change;
the servants were won by sweetness so irresistible--the dogs were
more kindly caressed, and Ariel--her own Ariel was, if possible, more
beloved.

Oh why--why is not love so pure and exalted as this, more characteristic
of human attachments? And why is it that affection, as exhibited in
general life, is so rarely seen unstained by the tint of some darker
passion? Love on, fair girl--love on in thy purity and innocence! The
beauty that thou seest in nature, and the music it sends forth, exist
only in thy own heart, and the light which plays around thee like a
glory, is only the reflection of that image whose lustre has taken away
the shadows from thy spirit!

In the mean time the heart, as we said, will, after the repose which
must follow excitement, necessarily move towards that object in which it
seeks its ultimate enjoyment. A week had now elapsed, and Jane began to
feel troubled by the absence of her lover. Her eye wished once more to
feast upon his beauty, and her ear again to drink in the melody of
his voice. It was true--it was surely true--and she put her long white
fingers to her forehead while thinking of him--yes, yes--it was true
that he loved her--but her heart called again for his presence, and
longed to hear him once more repeat, in fervid accents of eloquence the
enthusiasm of his passion.

Acknowledged love, however, in pure and honorable minds places the
conduct under that refined sense of propriety, which is not only felt
to be a restraint upon the freedom of virtuous principle itself, but is
observed with that jealous circumspection which considers even suspicion
as a stain upon its purity. No matter how intense affection in a
virtuous bosom may be, yet no decorum of life is violated by it,
no outwork even of the minor morals surrendered, nor is any act or
expression suffered to appear that might take away from the exquisite
feeling of what is morally essential to female modesty. For this reason,
therefore, it was that our heroine, though anxious to meet Osborne
again, could not bring herself to walk towards her accustomed haunts,
lest he might suspect that she thus indelicately sought him out. He had
frequently been there, and wondered that she never came; but however
deep his disappointment at her absence, or it might be, neglect, yet in
consequence of their last interview, he could not summon courage to pay
a visit, as he had sometimes before, to her family.

Nearly a fortnight had now elapsed, when Jane, walking one day in a
small shrubbery that skirted the little lawn before her father's door,
received a note by a messenger whom she recognized as a servant of Mr.
Osborne's.

The man, after putting it into her hands, added:

"I was desired, if possible, to bring back an answer."

She blushed deeply on receiving it, and shook so much that the tremor
of her small white hands gave evident proof of the agitation which it
produced in her bosom. She read as follows:--

"Oh why is it that I cannot see you! or what has become of you? This
absence is painful to me beyond the power of endurance. Alas, if you
loved with the deep and burning devotion that I do, you would not thus
avoid me. Do you not know, and feel, that our hearts have poured into
each other the secret of our mutual passion. Oh surely, surely, you
cannot forget that moment--a moment for which I could willingly endure
a century of pain. That moment has thrown a charm into my existence that
will render my whole future life sweet. All that I may suffer will be,
and already is softened in the consciousness that you love me. Oh let
me see you--I cannot rest, I cannot live without you. I beseech you, I
implore you, as you would not bring me down to despair and sorrow--as
you would not wring my heart with the agony of disappointment, to meet
me this evening at the same place and the same hour as before.

"Yours--yours for ever,

"H. O.

"N.B.--The bearer is trustworthy, and already acquainted with the secret
of our attachment, so that you need not hesitate to send me a reply by
him--and let it be a written one."

After pursuing this, she paused for a moment, and felt so much
embarrassed by the fact of their love being known to a third person,
that she could not look upon the messenger, while addressing him,
without shame-facedness and confusion.

"Wait a little," she said at length, "I will return presently"--and
with a singular conflict between joy, shame, and terror, she passed with
downcast looks out of the shrubbery, sought her own room, and having
placed writing materials before her, attempted to write. It was
not, however, till after some minutes that she could collect herself
sufficiently to use them. As she took the pen in her hand, something
like guilt seemed to press upon her heart--the blood forsook her cheeks,
and her strength absolutely left her.

"Is not this wrong," she thought. "I have already been guilty of
dissimulation, if not of direct-falsehood to my father, and now I am
about to enter into a correspondence without his knowledge."

The acuteness of her moral sense occasioned her, in fact, to feel much
distress, and the impression of religious sanction early inculcated
upon a mind naturally so gentle and innocent as hers, cast by its solemn
influence a deep gloom over the brief history of their loves. She laid
the pen down, and covering her face with both hands, burst into a flood
of tears.

"Why is it," she said to herself, "that a conviction as if of guilt
mingles itself with my affection for him; and that snatches of pain
and melancholy darken my mind, when I join in our morning and evening
worship? I fear, I fear, that God's grace and protection have been
withdrawn from me ever since I deceived my father. But these errors,"
she proceeded, "are my own, and not Henry's, and why should he suffer
pain and distress because I have been uncandid to others?"

Upon this slender argument she proceeded to write the following reply,
but still with an undercurrent of something like remorse stealing
through a mind that felt with incredible delicacy the slightest
deviation from what was right, yet possessed not the necessary firmness
to resist what was wrong.

"I know that it is indelicate and very improper--yes, and sinful in me
to write to you--and I would not do so, but that I cannot bear to think
that you should suffer pain. Why should you be distressed, when you know
that my affection for you will never change?--will, alas! I should add,
can never change. Dear Henry, is it not sufficient for our happiness
that our love is mutual? It ought at least to be so; and it would be
so, provided we kept its character unstained by any deviation from moral
feeling or duty in the sight of God. You must not continue to write to
me, for I shall not, and I can not persist in a course of deliberate
insincerity to those who love me with so much affection. I will,
however, see you this day, two hours earlier than the time appointed in
your note. I could not absent myself from the family then, without again
risking an indirect breach of truth, and this I am resolved never to do.
I hope you will not think less of me for writing to you, although it be
very wrong on my part. I have already wept for it, and my eyes are even
now filled with tears; but you surely will not be a harsh judge upon the
conduct of your own

"Jane Sinclair."


Having sealed this letter, she hid it in her bosom, and after delaying
a short time to compose her features, again proceeded to the shrubbery,
where she found the servant waiting. Simple as was the act of handing
him the note, yet so inexpressibly delicate was the whole tenor of her
mind, that the slightest step irreconcilable with her standard of female
propriety, left behind it a distinct and painful trace that disturbed
the equilibrium of a character so finely balanced. With an abashed face
and burning brow, she summoned courage, however, to give it, and was
instantly proceeding home, when the messenger observed that she had
given him the wrong letter. She then took the right one from her bosom,
and placing it in his hands would again have hurried into the house."

"You do not mean, I suppose, to send him back his own note," observed
the man, handing her Osborne's as he spoke.

"No, no," she replied, "give it to me; I knew not--in fact, it was a
mistake." She then received Osborne's letter, and hastily withdrew.

The reader may have observed, that so long as Jane merely contemplated
the affection that subsisted between Osborne and herself, as a matter
unconnected with any relative association, and one on which the heart
will dwell with delight while nothing intrudes to disturb its serenity,
so long was the contemplation of perfect happiness. But the moment she
approached her family, or found herself on the eve of taking another
step in its progress, such was her almost morbid candor, and her timid
shrinking from any violation of truth, that her affection for this very
reason became darkened, as she herself said, by snatches of melancholy
and pain.

It is indeed difficult to say whether such a tender perception of good
and evil as characterized all her emotions, may not have predisposed her
mind to the unhappy malady which eventually overcame it; or whether, on
the other hand, the latent existence of the malady in her temperament
may not have rendered such perceptions too delicate for the healthy
discharge of human duties.

Be this as it may, our innocent and beautiful girl is equally to be
pitied; and we trust that in either case the sneers of the coarse and
heartless will be spared against a character they cannot understand. At
all events, it is we think slightly, and but slightly evident, that
even at the present stage of her affection, something prophetic of her
calamity, in a faintly perceptible degree may, to an observing mind, be
recognized in the vivid and impulsive power with which that affection
has operated upon her. If anything could prove this, it is the fervency
with which, previous to the hour of appointment, she bent in worship
before God, to beseech His pardon for the secret interview she was about
to give her lover. And in any other case, such an impression, full of
religious feeling as it was, would have prevented the subject of it
from acting contrary to its tendency; but here was the refined dread of
error, lively even to acuteness, absolutely incapable of drawing back
the mind from the transgression of moral duty which filled it with a
feeling nearly akin to remorse.

Jane that day met the family at dinner, merely as a matter of course,
for she could eat nothing. There was, independently of this, a timidity
in her manner which they noticed, but could not understand.

"Why," said her father, "you were never a great eater, Janie, but
latterly you live, like the chameleon, on air. Surely your health cannot
be good, with such a poor appetite;--your own Ariel eats more."

"I feel my health to be very good, papa; but--" she hesitated a little,
attempted to speak, and paused again; "Although my health is good," she
at last proceeded, "I am not, papa,--I mean my spirits are sometimes
better than they ever were, and sometimes more depressed."

"They are depressed now, Jane," said her mother.

"I don't know that, mamma. Indeed I could not describe my present state
of feeling; but I think,--indeed I know I am not so good as I ought
to be. I am not so good, mamma, and maybe one day you will all have to
forgive me more than you think."

Her father laid his knife and fork down, and fixing his eyes
affectionately upon her, said:

"My child, there is something wrong with you."

Jane herself, who sat beside her mother, made no reply; but putting her
arms about her neck, she laid her cheek against hers, and wept for many
minutes. She then rose in a paroxysm of increasing sorrow, and throwing
her arms about her father's neck also, sobbed out as upon the occasion
already mentioned:--

"Oh, papa, pity and forgive me;--your poor Jane, pity her and forgive
her."

The old man struggled with his grief, for he saw that the tears of the
family rendered it a duty upon him to be firm: nay, he smiled after a
manner, and said in a voice of forced good humor:

"You are a foolish slut, Jane, and play upon us, because you know we pet
and love you too much. If you cannot eat your dinner go play, and get an
appetite for to-morrow."

She kissed him, and as was her habit of compliance with his slightest
wish, left the room as he had desired her.

"Henry," said his wife, "there is something wrong with her."

For a time he could not speak; but after a deep silence he wiped away a
few straggling-tears, and replied:

"Yes! yes! do you not see that there is a mystery upon my child!--a
mystery which weighs down my heart with affliction."

"Dear papa," said Agnes, "don't forbode evil for her."

"It's a mere nervous affection," said William. "She ought to take more
exercise. Of late she has been too much within."

Maria and Agnes exchanged looks; and for the first time, a suspicion of
the probable cause flashed simultaneously across their minds. They sat
beside each other at dinner, and Maria said in a whisper:

"Agnes, you and I are thinking of the same thing."

"I am thinking of Jane," said her candid and affectionate sister.

"My opinion is," rejoined Maria, "that she is attached to Charles
Osborne."

"I suspect it is so," whispered Agnes. "Indeed from many things that
occur to me I am now certain of it."

"I don't see any particular harm in that," replied Maria.

"It may be a very unhappy attachment for Jane, though," said Agnes.
"Only think, Maria, if Osborne should not return her affection: I know
Jane,--she would sink under it."

"Not return her affection!" replied her sister. "Where would he find
another so beautiful, and every way so worthy of him?"

"Very true, Maria; and I trust in heaven he may think so. But how, if he
should never know or suspect her love for him?"

"I cannot answer that," said the other; "but we will talk more about it
by-and-by."

Whilst this dialogue went on in a low tone, the other members of the
family sat in silence and concern, each evidently anxious to develop the
mystery of Jane's recent excitement at dinner. At length the old man's
eye fell upon his two other daughters, and he said:

"What is this, children--what is this whispering all about? Perhaps some
of you can explain the conduct of that poor child."

"But, papa," said Agnes, "you are not to know all our secrets."

"Am I not, indeed, Aggy? That's pretty evident from the cautious tone in
which you and Mary speak."

"Well, but Agnes is right, Henry," said her mother: "to know the
daughters' secrets is my privilege--and yours to know William's--if he
has any."

"Upon my word, mother, mine are easily carried, I assure you."

"Suppose, papa," observed Agnes, good-humoredly, "that I was to fall in
love, now--as is not----

"Improbable that you may--you baggage," replied her father, smiling,
whilst he completed the sentence; "Well, and you would not tell me if
you did?"

"No indeed, sir; I should not. Perhaps I ought,--but I could not,
certainly, bring myself to do it. For instance, would it be either
modest or delicate in me, to go and say to your face, 'Papa, I'm in
love.' In that case the next step, I suppose, would be to make you the
messenger between us. Now would you not expect as much, papa, if I told
you?" said the arch and lively girl.

"Aggy, you are a presuming gipsy," replied the old man, joining in the
laugh which she had caused. "Me your messenger!"

"Yes, and a steady one you would make, sir--I am sure you would not, at
all events, overstep your instructions."

"That will be one quality essentially necessary to any messenger of
yours, Agnes," replied her father, in the same spirit.

"Papa," said she, suddenly changing her manner, and laying aside her
gayety, "what I said in jest of myself may be seriously true of another
in this family. Suppose Jane----"

"Jane!" exclaimed the old man;--"impossible! She is but a girl!--but
a child!" "Agnes, this is foolish of you," said her sister. "It is
possible, after all, that you are doing poor Jane injustice. Papa, Agnes
only speaks from suspicion. We are not certain of anything. It was I
mentioned it first, but merely from suspicion."

"If Jane's affections are engaged," said her father, "I tremble to think
of the consequences should she experience the slightest disappointment.
But it cannot be, Maria,--the girl has too much sense, and her
principles are too well established."

"What is it you mean, girls?" inquired their mother, in a tone of
surprise and alarm.

"Indeed, Agnes," said Maria, reprovingly, "it is neither fair nor
friendly to poor Jane, to bring out a story founded only on a mere
surmise. Agnes insists, mamma, that Jane is attached to Charles
Osborne."

"It certainly occurred to us only a few moments ago, I allow," replied
Agnes; "but if I am mistaken in this, I will give up my judgment in
everything else. And I mentioned it solely to prevent our own distress,
particularly papa's, with respect to the change that is of late so
visible in her conduct and manner."

Strange to say, however, that Mr. Sinclair and his wife both repudiated
the idea of her attachment to Osborne, and insisted that Agnes'
suspicion was rash and groundless.

It was impossible, they said, that such an attachment could exist;
Jane and Osborne had seen too little of each other, and were both of
a disposition too shy and diffident to rush so precipitately into a
passion that is usually the result of far riper years than either of
them had yet reached.

Mr. Sinclair admitted that Jane was a girl full of affection, and likely
to be extremely susceptible, yet it was absurd, he added, to suppose for
a moment, that she would suffer them to be engaged, or her peace of mind
disturbed, by a foolish regard for a smooth-faced boy, and she herself
not much beyond sixteen.

There is scarcely to be found, in the whole range of human life
and character, any observation more true, and at the same time more
difficult to be understood, than the singular infatuation of parents
who have survived their own passions,--whenever the prudence of their
children happens to be called in question.

We know not whether such a fact be necessary to the economy of life, and
the free breathings of youthful liberty, but this at least is clear to
any one capable of noting down its ordinary occurrences, that no matter
how acutely and vividly parents themselves may have felt the passion of
love when young, they appear as ignorant of the symptoms that mark its
stages in the lives of their children, as if all memory of its existence
had been obliterated out of their being. Perhaps this may be wisely
designed, and no doubt it is, but, alas! its truth is a melancholy
comment upon the fleeting character of the only passion that charms
our early life, and fills the soul with sensations too ethereal to be
retained by a heart which grosser associations have brought beneath the
standard of purity necessary for their existence in it.

Jane, as she bent her way to the place of appointment, felt like one
gradually emerging out of darkness into light. The scene at dinner
had quickened her moral sense, which, as the reader already knows, was
previous to that perhaps morbidly acute. Every step, however, towards
the idol of her young devotion, removed the memory of what had occurred
at home, and collected around her heart all the joys and terrors that in
maidenly diffidence characterize the interview she was about to give her
lover. Oh how little do we know of those rapid lights and shadows which
shift and tremble across the spirits of the gentle sex, when approaching
to hold this tender communion with those whom they love. Nothing that
we remember resembles the busy working of the soul on such occasions,
so much as those lucid streamers which flit in sweeps of delicate light
along the northern sky, filling it at once with beauty and terror,
and emitting at the same time a far and almost inaudible undertone of
unbroken music.

Trembling and fluttering like a newly-caught bird, Jane approached the
place of meeting and found Osborne there awaiting her. The moment he
saw the graceful young creature approach him, he felt that he had
never until then loved her so intensely. The first declaration of their
attachment was made during an accidental interview, but there is a
feeling of buoyant confidence that flashes up from the heart, when, at
the first concerted meeting of love we see the object of our affection
advance towards us,--for that deliberate act of a faithful heart
separates the beloved one, in imagination, to ourselves, and gives
a fulness to our enjoyment which melts us in an exulting tenderness
indescribable by language. Those who have doubted the punctuality of
some beloved girl, and afterwards seen her come, will allow that our
description of that rapturous moment is not overdrawn.

"My dear, dear Jane," exclaimed Osborne, taking her hand and placing her
beside him,

"I neither knew my own heart nor thee extent of its affection for
you until this meeting. In what terms shall I express--but I will not
attempt it--I cannot--but my soul burns with love for you, such as was
ever felt by mortal."

"It is my trust and confidence in your love that brings me here," she
replied; "and indeed, Charles, it is more than that--I know your health
is, at the best, easily affected, and your spirits naturally prone to
despondency; and I feared," said the artless girl, "that--that--indeed
I feared you might suffer pain, and that pain might bring on ill health
again."

"And I am so dear to you, Jane?"

Jane replied by a smile and looked inexpressibly tender.

"I am, I am!" he exclaimed with rapture; "and now the
world--life--nothing--nothing can add to the fulness of my happiness.
And your note, my beloved--the conclusion of it--your own Jane Sinclair!
But you must be more my own yet--legally and forever mine! Mine! Shall
I be able to bear it!--shall I? Jane?" said he, his enthusiastic
temperament kindling as he spoke--"Oh what, my dearest, my own dearest,
if this should not last, will it not consume me? Will it not destroy me?
this overwhelming excess of rapture!"

"But you must restrain it, Charles; surely the suspense arising from the
doubt of our being beloved is more painful than the certainty that we
are so."

"Yes; but the exulting sense, my dear Jane, to me almost
oppressive,--but I rave, I rave; it is all delight--all happiness! Yes,
it will prolong life,--for we know what we live for."

"We do," said Jane, in a low, sweet voice, whilst her eye fed upon his
beauty. "Do I not live for you, Charles?"

His lip was near her cheek as she spoke; he then gently drew her to him,
and in a voice lower, and if possible more melodious than her own, said,
"Oh Jane, is there not something inexpressibly affectionate--some wild
and melting charm in the word wife?"

"That is a feeling," she replied, evidently softened by the tender
spirit of his words, "of which you are a better judge than I can be."

"Oh say, my dearest, let me hear you say with your own lips, that you
will be my wife."

"I will," she whispered--and as she spoke, he inhaled the fragrance of
her breath.

"My wife!"

"Your wife!"

Sweet, and long, and rapturous was the kiss which sealed this sacred
and entrancing promise. The pathetic sentiment that pervaded their
attachment kept their passion pure, and seldom have two lovers so
beautiful, sat cheek to cheek together, in an embrace guileless and
innocent as theirs.

Jane, however, withdrew herself from his arms, and for a few moments
felt not even conscious, so far was her heart removed from evil, that an
embrace under such circumstances was questionable, much less improper.
Following so naturally from the tenderness of their dialogue, it seemed
to be rather the necessary action arising from the eloquence of their
feeling, than an act which might incur censure or reproof. Her fine
sense of propriety, however, could be scarcely said to have slumbered,
for, with a burning cheek and a sobbing voice, she exclaimed,

"Charles, these secret meetings must cease. They have involved me in a
course of dissimulation and falsehood towards my family, which I cannot
bear. You say you love me, and I know you do, but surely you could not
esteem, nor place full confidence in a girl, who, to gratify either her
own affection or yours, would deceive her parents."

"But, my dearest girl, you reason too severely. Surely almost all who
love must, in the earliest stages of affection, practice, to a certain
extent, a harmless deception upon their friends, until at least their
love is sanctioned. Marriages founded upon mutual attachment would be
otherwise impracticable."

"No deception, dear Charles, can be harmless. I cannot forget the
precepts of truth, and virtue, and obedience to a higher law even
than his own will, which my dear papa taught me, and I will never more
violate them, even for you."

"You are too pure, too full of truth, my beloved girl, for this world.
Social life is carried on by so much dissimulation, hypocrisy, and
falsehood, that you will be actually unfit to live in it."

"Then let me die in it sooner than be guilty of any one of them. No,
dear Charles, I am not too full of truth. On the contrary, I cannot
understand how it is that my love for you has plunged me into deceit.
Nay more, Charles," she exclaimed, rising up, and placing her hand
on her heart, "I am wrong here--why is it, will you tell me, that our
attachment has crossed and disturbed my devotions to God. I cannot
worship God as I would, and as I used to do. What if His grace be
withdrawn from me? Could you love me then? Could you love a cast-a-way?
Charles, you love truth too well to cherish affection for a being, a
reprobate perhaps, and full of treachery and falsehood. I am not such,
but I fear sometimes that I am."

Her youthful lover gazed upon her as she stood with her sparkling eyes
fixed upon vacancy. Never did she appear so beautiful, her features were
kindled into an expression which was new to him--but an expression so
full of high moral feeling, beaming like the very divinity of truth from
her countenance, yet overshadowed by an unsettled gloom, which gave to
her whole appearance the power of creating both awe and admiration in
the spectator.

The boy was deeply affected, and in a voice scarcely firm, said in
soothing and endearing accents, whilst he took her hand in his,

"Jane, my best beloved, and dearest--say, oh say in what manner I can
compose your mind, or relieve you from the necessity of practising the
deceit which troubles you so much."

"Oh," said she, bending her eye on him, "but it is sweet to be beloved
by those that are dear to us. Your sympathy thrills through my whole
frame with a soothing sensation inexpressibly delightful. It is sweet to
me--for you, Charles, are my only confident. Dear, dear Charles, how I
longed to see you, and to hear your voice."

As she made this simple but touching admission of the power of her love,
she laid her head on his bosom and wept. Charles pressed her to his
heart, and strove to speak, but could not--she felt his tears raining
fast upon her face.

At length he said, pressing his beautiful once more to his beating
bosom--"the moment, the moment that I cease to love you, may it, O God,
be my last."

She rose, and quietly wiping her eyes, said--"I will go--we will meet no
more--no more in secret."

"Oh, Jane," said her lover, "how shall I make myself worthy of you;
but why," he added, "should our love be a secret? Surely it will be
sanctioned by our friends. You shall not be distressed by the
necessity of insincerity, although it would be wrong to call the simple
concealment of your love for me by so harsh a name."

"But my papa," she said, "he is so good to me; they are all so
affectionate, they love me too much; but my dear papa, I cannot stand
with a stain on my conscience in his presence. Not that I fear him;
but it would be treacherous and ungrateful: I would tell him all, but I
cannot."

"My sweet girl, let not that distress you. Your father shall be made
acquainted with it from other lips. I will disclose the secret to my
father, and, with a proud heart, tell him of our affection."

It never once occurred to a creature so utterly unacquainted with the
ways of the world as Jane was that Mr. Osburne might disapprove of their
attachment, and prevent a boy so youthful from following the bent of his
own inclinations.

"Dear Charles," said she, smiling, "what a load their approval will
take off my heart. I can then have papa's pardon for my past duplicity
towards him; and my mind will be so much soothed and composed. We can
also meet each other with their sanction."

"My wife! my wife!" said Osborne, looking on her with a rapturous gaze
of love and admiration--and carrying her allusion to the consent of
their families up to the period when he might legitimately give her that
title--"My wife," he exclaimed, "my young, my beautiful, my pure and
unspotted wife. Heavens! and is--is the day surely to come when I am to
call you so!"

The beautiful girl hung her head a moment as if abashed, then gliding
timidly towards him, leant upon his shoulder, and putting her lips up to
his ear, with a blush as much of delight as of modesty, whispered--"My
husband, my husband, why should not these words, dear Charles, be as
sweet a charm to my heart, as those you've mentioned are to yours. I
would, but I cannot add--no, I will not suffer it," she exclaimed, on
his attempting, in the prostration of the moment, to embrace her. "You
must not presume upon the sincerity of an affectionate and ingenuous
heart. Farewell, dear Charles, until we can see each other without a
consciousness that we are doing wrong." Saying which, she extended her
hand to him, and in a moment was on her way home.

And was the day to come when he could call her his? Alas! that day was
never registered in the records of time.

Oh! how deeply beloved was our heroine by her family, when her moods of
mind and state of spirits fixed the tone of their domestic enjoyments
and almost influenced the happiness of their lives. O gentle and pure
spirit, what heart cannot love thee, when those who knew thee best
gathered their affections so lovingly around thee, the star of their
hearth--the idol of their inner shrine--the beautiful, the meek, the
affectionate, and even then, in consequence of thy transcendant charms,
the far-famed Fawn of Springvale!

In the early part of that evening, Jane's spirits, equable and calm,
hushed in a great measure the little domestic debate which had been
held at dinner, concerning the state of her affections. The whole family
partook of her cheerfulness, and her parents in particular, cast several
looks of triumphant sagacity, at Maria and Agnes, especially at the
latter.

"Jane," said her father in the triumph of his heart, "you are not aware
that Agnes is in love."

The good-humored tone in which this was spoken, added to the utterly
unsuspicious character of the innocent being to whom the words were
addressed, rendered it impossible for Jane to suppose that there was any
latent meaning in his observation that could be levelled at herself.
In truth, there was not, for any satire it contained was directed
especially to Agnes. There are tones of voice, the drift of which no
effort, however forced, or studied, can conceal, particularly from,
those who, by intimacy and observation, are acquainted with them, and
with the moods of mind and shades of feeling which prompt them. Jane
knew intuitively by the tone in which her father spoke--and by the
expression of his countenance, that the words were not meant to apply by
any direct analogy to herself. She consequently preserved her composure
and replied to the question, with the same good humor in which the words
were uttered.

"Agnes in love! Well, papa, and surely that is not unnatural."

"Thank you, Jane," replied Agnes. "Papa, that's a rebuff worth
something; and Jane," she proceeded, anxious still to vindicate her
own sagacity with respect to her sister, "suppose I should be in love,
surely I may carry on an innocent intercourse with my lover, without
consulting papa."

"No, Agnes, you should not," replied her sister, vehemently; "no
intercourse--no intercourse without papa's knowledge, can be innocent.
There is deceit and dissimulation in it--there is treachery in it. It is
impossible to say how gloomily such an intercourse may end. Only think,
my dear Agnes," she proceeded, in a low, but vehement and condensed
voice--"only think, dear Agnes, what the consequences might be to you if
such an attachment, and such a clandestine mode of conducting it, should
in consequence of your duplicity to papa, cause the Almighty God to
withdraw His grace from you, and that, you should thereby become a
cast-away--a castaway! I shudder to think of it! I shudder to think of
it."

"Jane, sit beside me," said Mr. Sinclair; "you are rather too hard upon
poor Agnes--but, still come, and sit beside me. You are my own sweet
child--my own dutiful and candid girl."

"I cannot, I cannot, papa, I dare not," she exclaimed, and without
uttering another word she arose, and rushed out of the room. In less
than a minute, however, she returned again, and approaching him,
said--"Papa, forgive me, I will, I trust, soon be a better girl than I
am; bless me and bid me good-night. Mamma, bless me you too, I am your
poor Jane, and I know you all love me more than you ought. Do not think
that I am unhappy--don't think it. I have not been for some time so
happy as I am to-night."

She then passed out of the room, and retired to her own apartment.

When she was gone, Agnes, who sat beside | her father, turned to him,
and leaned her I head upon his breast, burst into bitter tears. "Papa,"
she exclaimed, "I believe you will now admit that I have gained the
victory. My sister's peace of mind or happiness is gone for ever. Unless
Osborne either now is, or becomes in time attached to her, I know not
what the consequences may be."

"It will be well for Osborne, at all events, if he has not practised
upon her affections," said William; "that is, granting that the
suspicion, be just. But the truth is, I don't think Osborne has any
thing to do with her feelings. It is merely some imaginary trifle that
she has got into her foolish little head, poor girl. Don't distress
yourself, father--you know she was always over-scrupulous. Even the most
harmless fib that ever was told, is a crime in her eyes. I wish, for
my part, she had a little wholesome wickedness about--I don't mean
that sir, in a very unfavorable light," he said in reply to a look of
severity from his father, "but I wish she had some leaning to error
about her. She would, in one sense at least, be the better for it."

"We shall see," said his father, who evidently spoke in deep distress of
mind, "we shall consider in the course of the evening what ought to be
done."

"Better to take her gently," observed her mother, wiping away a tear,
"gentleness and love will make her tell anything--and that there is
something on her mind no one can doubt."

"I won't have her distressed, my dear," replied her father. "It cannot
be of much importance I think after all--but whatever it may be, her own
candid mind will give it forth spontaneously. I know my child, and will
answer for her."

"Why then, papa, are you so much distressed, if you think it of no
importance?" asked Maria.

"If her finger ached, it would distress me, child, and you know it."

"Why, she and Osborne have had no opportunity of being together, out of
the eyes of the family," observed William.

"That's more than you know, William," said Agnes; "she has often walked
out."

"But she always did so," replied her mother.

"She would never meet him privately," said her father firmly, "of that I
am certain as my life."

"That, papa," returned Agnes, "I am afraid, is precisely what she has
done, and what now distresses her. And I am sure that whatever is wrong
with her, no explanation will be had from herself. Though kind and
affectionate as ever, she has been very shy with me and Maria of
late--and indeed, has made it a point to keep aloof from us! Three or
four times I spoke to her in a tone of confidence, as if I was about to
introduce some secret of my own, but she always under some pretense or
other left me. I had not thought of Osborne at the time, nor could I
guess what troubled her--but something I saw did." Her father sighed
deeply, and, clasping his hands, uttered a silent ejaculation to heaven
on her behalf. "That is true," said he, "it is now the hour of evening
worship; let us kneel and remember her trouble, the poor child, whatever
it may be." "Had I not better call her down, papa," said Agnes.

"Not this evening," he replied, "not this evening--she is too much
disturbed, and will probably prefer praying alone."

The old man then knelt down, and after the usual form of evening
worship, uttered a solemn and affecting appeal upon her behalf, to Him,
who can pour balm upon the wounded spirit, and say unto the weary and
heavy laden, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." But when he went
on in words more particularly describing her state of mind, to mention,
and plead for "their youngest," and "their dearest," and "their best
beloved," his voice became tremulous, and for a moment he paused, but
the pause was filled with the sobbings of those who loved her, and
especially by the voice of that affectionat