The amiable doctor’s opinion, however, was much more quickly verified than he imagined; for Jane, whose heart yearned towards her father with the beautiful instinct of an affection which scarcely insanity itself could overcome, once more looked earnestly into his face, with an eye in which meaning and madness seemed to struggle for the mastery.  She gazed at him for a long time, put her hands upon his white hair, into which she gently twined her long white fingers; once or twice she smiled, and said something in a voice too low to be heard:  but all at once she gave a convulsive start, clasped her hands wofully, and throwing herself on his bosom, exclaimed: 

“Oh papa, papa—­your child is lost:  pray for me—­pray for me.”

Her sobs became too thick and violent for further utterance; she panted and wrought strongly, until at length she lay with locked teeth and clenched hands struggling in a fit which eventually, by leaving her, terminated in a state of lethargic insensibility.

For upwards of three days she suffered more than any person unacquainted with her delicacy of constitution could deem her capable of enduring.  And, indeed, were it not that the aid rendered by Dr. M’Cormick was so prompt and so skilful, it is possible that the sorrows of the faithful Jane Sinclair might have here closed.  On the fourth day, however, she experienced a change; but, alas, such a change as left the loving and beloved group who had hung over her couch with anxious hopes of her restoration to reason, now utterly hopeless and miserable.  She arose from her paroxysms a beautiful, happy, and smiling maniac, from whose soul in mercy had been removed that susceptibility of mental pain, which constitutes the burthen and bitterness of ordinary calamity.

The first person who discovered this was her mother, who, on the fourth morning of her illness, had stolen to her bedside to see how her beloved one felt.  Agnes, who would permit no other person to nurse her darling sister, lay asleep with her head reclining on the foot of the bed, having been overcome by her grief and the fatigue of incessant watching.  As her mother stooped down to look into the sufferer’s face, her heart bounded with delight oh seeing Jane’s eyes smiling upon her with all the symptoms of recognition.

“Jane, my heart’s dearest,” she said, in a soothing, low inquiry, “don’t you know me?”

“Yes, very well,” she replied; “you are my mamma, and this is Agnes sleeping on the foot of the bed.  Why does she sleep there?”

The happy mother scarcely heard her child’s question, for ere the words were well uttered she laid her head down upon the mourner’s bosom, in a burst of melancholy joy, and wept so loudly that her voice awakened Agnes, who, starting up, exclaimed: 

“Oh, mother, mother—­what is this?  Is—?” she said, “No, no—­she must not—­she would not leave her Agnes.  Oh mother—­mother, is it so?”

“No, no, Agnes love; no—­but may the mercy of God be exalted for ever, Jane knows her mamma this morning, and she knows you too, Agnes.”