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