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.”

“Swear what, Charles?”

“That the moment I see a girl more beautiful, I will cease to write to you—­I will cease to love you.”

The blood instantly forsook her cheeks, and she gazed at him with wonder and dismay.

“What, dear Charles, do you mean?”

“Oh, my pride and my treasure!” he exclaimed, wildly clasping her to his bosom—­“there is none so fair—­none on earth or in heaven itself so beautiful—­that, my own ever dearest, is my meaning.”

The confidence of her timid and loving heart was instantly restored—­and she said smiling, yet with a tear struggling through her eyelid, “I believe I am I think I am beautiful.  I know they call me the Fawn of Springvale, because I am gentle.”

“The angels are not so gentle, nor so pure, nor so innocent as you are, my un-wedded wife.”

“I am glad I am,” she replied; “and I am glad, too, that I am beautiful—­but it is all on your account, and for your sake, dear Charles.”

The fascination—­the power of such innocence, and purity, and love, utterly overcame him, and he wept in transport upon her bosom.

The approach of her sisters, however, and the liveliness of Agnes, soon changed the character of their dialogue.  For an hour they ran and chased each other, and played about, after which Charles took his leave of them for the evening.  Jane, as usual, being the last he parted from, whispered to him,as he went—­

“Charles, promise me, that in future you won’t repeat—­the—­the words you used in, the summer-house.”

“What words, love?” “You remember—­about—­about—­what you said you might swear—­and that, in that case, you would cease to love me.”

“Why dearest, should I promise you this?” “Because,” she said, in a low, sweet whisper, “they disturb me when I think of them—­a slight thing makes my heart sink.”

“You are a foolish, sweet girl—­but I promise you, I shall never again use them.”

She bestowed on him a look and smile that were more than a sufficient compensation for this; and after again bidding him farewell, she tripped lightly into the house.