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?”