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.