This, in fact, was the true state of the faithful girl’s heart.  From the moment Osborne went to travel, her affection, though full of the tenderest enthusiasm, lay under the deep shadow of that gloom, which was occasioned by the first, and we may say the only act of insincerity she was ever guilty of towards her father.  The reader knows that even this act was not a deliberate one, but merely the hurried evasion of a young and bashful girl, who, had her sense of moral delicacy been less acute, might have never bestowed a moment’s subsequent consideration upon it.  Let our fair young readers, however, be warned even by this very slight deviation from truth, and let them also remember that one act of dissimulation may, in the little world of their own moral sentiments and affections, lay the foundation for calamities under which their hopes and their happiness in consequence of that act may absolutely perish.  Still are we bound to say that Jane’s deportment during the period, stipulated upon for Osborne’s absence was admirably decorous, and replete with moral beauty.  Her moments of enjoyment derived from his letters, were fraught with an innocent simplicity of delight in fine keeping with a heart so fall of youthful fervor and attachment.  And when her imagination became occasionally darkened by that gloom which she termed her malady, nothing could be more impressive than the tone of deep and touching piety which mingled with and elevated her melancholy into a cheerful solemnity of spirit, that swayed by its pensive dignity the habits and affections of her whole family.

’Tis true she was one of a class rarely to be found amoung even the highest of her own sex, and her attachment was consequently that of a heart utterly incapable of loving twice.  Her first affection was too steadfast and decisive ever to be changed, and at the same time too full and unreserved to maintain the materials for a second passion.  The impression she received was too deep ever to be erased.  She might weep—­she might mourn—­she might sink—­her soul might be bowed down to the dust—­her heart might break—­she might die—­but she never, never, could love again.  That heart was his palace, where the monarch of her affections reigned—­but remove his throne, and it became the sepulchre of her own hopes—­the ruin, haunted by the moping brood of her own sorrows.  Often, indeed, did her family wonder at the freshness of memory manifested in the character of her love for Osborne.  There was nothing transient, nothing forgotten, nothing perishable in her devotion to him.  In truth, it had something of divinity in it.  Every thing past, and much also of the future was present to her.  Osborne breathed and lived at the expiration of two years, just as he had done the day before he set out on his travels.  In her heart he existed as an undying principle, and the duration of her love for him seemed likely to be limited only by those laws of nature, which, in the course of time, carry the heart beyond the memory of all human affections.