was arranged that Osborne, whose health, besides, was not sufficiently
firm, should travel, see the world, and strengthen his constitution by
the genial air of a warmer and more salubrious climate.

Alas! why is it that the sorrows of love are far sweeter than its joys?
We do not mean to say that our young hero and heroine, if we may presume
so to call them, were insensible to this lapse of serene delight which
now opened upon them. No--the happiness they enjoyed was indeed such
as few taste in such a world as this is. Their attachment was now
sanctioned by all their mutual friends, and its progress was unimpeded
by an scruple arising from clandestine intercourse, or a breach of duty.
But, with secrecy, passed away those trembling snatches of unimaginable
transport which no state of permitted love has ever yet known. The
stolen glance, the passing whisper, the guarded pressure of the soft
white hand timidly returned, and the fearful rapture of the hurried
kiss--alas! alas!--and alas! for the memory of Eloiza!

Time passed, and the preparations necessary for Osborne's journey
were in fact nearly completed. One day, about a fortnight before his
departure, he and Jane were sitting in a little ozier summer-house in
Mr. Sinclair's garden, engaged in a conversation more tender than usual,
for each felt their love deeper and their hearts sink as the hour of
separation approached them. Jane's features exhibited such a
singular union of placid confidence and melancholy, as gave something
Madonna-like and divine to her beauty. Osborne sat, and for a long time
gazed upon her with a silent intensity of rapture for which he could
find no words. At length he exclaimed in a reverie--

"I will swear it--I may swear it."