om the truth. Jane felt that she was not
popular in society, and it grieved her, yet she strove in vain to
assimilate with those around her, to feel and act as they did, and to
be like them, admired and loved. But the narrow circle in which she
moved was not at all calculated to appreciate or draw forth her talent
or character. With a heart filled with all womanly tenderness and
gentle sympathies, a mind stored with romance, and full of restless
longings for the beautiful and true, possessed of fine tastes that
only waited cultivation to ripen into talent, Jane found herself
thrown among those who neither understood nor sympathized with her.
Her mother idolized her, but Jane felt that had she been far different
from what she was, her mother's love had been the same; and though she
returned her parent's affection with all the warmth of her nature,
there was ever within her heart a restless yearning for something
beyond. Immersed in a narrow routine of daily duties, compelled to
practice the most rigid economy, and to lend her every thought and
moment to the assistance of her mother, Jane had little time for the
gratification of those tastes that formed her sole enjoyment. 'It is
the perpetual recurrence of the little that crushes the romance of
life,' says Bulwer; and the experience of every day justifies the
truth of his remark. Jane felt herself, as year after year crept by,
becoming grave and silent. She knew that in her circumstances it was
best that the commonplaces of every-day life should be sufficient for
her, but she grieved as each day she felt the bright hues of early
enthusiasm fading out and giving place to the cold gray tint of
reality."

"With her pure sense of the beautiful, Jane felt acutely the lack of
those personal charms that seem to win a way to every heart. By those
who loved her, (and the few who knew her well did love her dearly,)
she was called at times beautiful, but a casual observer would never
dream of bestowing upon the slight, frail creature who timidly shrunk
from notice, any more flattering epithet than 'rather a pretty girl,'
while those who admired only the rosy beauty of physical perfection
pronounced her decidedly plain."

"Jane Lynn had entered her twenty-second summer when her mother's
household was increased by the arrival of a new inmate. Everard Morris
was a man of good fortune, gentlemanly, quiet, and a bachelor.
Possessed of very tender feelings and ardent temperament, he ha