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