“Why should I fear comparisons?  He may come as soon as he pleases.  I am ready to receive him, but do you know I think that my papa and mamma are not so fond of me as they ought to be.  Is it not an honor to have for their daughter a girl whose beauty is unsurpassed in Europe?  I am not proud of it for my own sake, but for his.”

“Jane, do you know this gentleman, dear?” said her mother.

“Oh yes; that is Dr. M’Cormick.”

“I am glad to see that your health is so much improved, my dear,” said the doctor.

“Oh yes;” she replied, “I am quite well—­that is so far as this world is concerned; but for all so happy as I look, you would never guess that I am reprobate.  Now could you tell me, doctor, why it is that I look so happy knowing as I do that I am foredoomed to misery?”

“No,” he replied, “but you will tell us yourself.”

“Why it is because I do know it.  Knowing the worst is often a great consolation, I assure you.  I, at least, have felt it so.”

“Oh what a noble mind is lost in that sweet girl!” exclaimed the worthy physician.

“But it seems, mamma,” she proceeded, “there is a report gone abroad that I am mad.  I met yesterday—­was it not yesterday, Agnes?—­I met a young woman down on the river side, and she asked me if it were true that I was crazed with love, and how do you think I replied, mamma?  I said to her, ’If you would avoid misery—­misery, mark—­never violate truth even indirectly.’  I said that solemnly, and would have said more but that Agnes rebuked her for speaking, and then wept.  Did you not weep, Agnes?”

“Oh no wonder I should,” replied her sister, deeply moved; “the interview she alludes to, doctor, was one that occurred the day before yesterday between her and another poor girl in the neighborhood who is also unsettled, owing to a desertion of a still baser kind.  It was becoming too affecting to listen to, and I chid the poor thing off.”

“Yes, indeed, she chid her off, and the poor thing as she told me, about to be a bride to-morrow.  She said she was in quest of William that they might be married, and asked me if I had seen him.  If you do, she added, tell him that Fanny is waiting for him, and that as everything is ready she expects he’ll come and marry her to-morrow as he promised.  Now, mamma, Agnes said, that although she chid her, she wept for her, but why should you weep, Agnes, for a girl who is about to become a bride to-morrow?  Surely you did not weep because she was going to be made happy?  Did you?”

“All who are going to become brides are not about to experience happiness, my dear,” replied her sister.

“Oh, I should think so certainly, Agnes,” replied Jane.  “Fie, fie, dear sister Agnes, do not lay down such doctrine.  Did you not see the happy girl we met yesterday—­was it yesterday?  But no matter, Agnes, we shall not quarrel about it.  Come and walk.  Good-by, my mamma; doctor, I wish you a good morning,” and with a grace that was inimitable, she made him a distant, but most respectful curtsey.