do we know of those rapid lights and shadows which
shift and tremble across the spirits of the gentle sex, when approaching
to hold this tender communion with those whom they love. Nothing that
we remember resembles the busy working of the soul on such occasions,
so much as those lucid streamers which flit in sweeps of delicate light
along the northern sky, filling it at once with beauty and terror,
and emitting at the same time a far and almost inaudible undertone of
unbroken music.

Trembling and fluttering like a newly-caught bird, Jane approached the
place of meeting and found Osborne there awaiting her. The moment he
saw the graceful young creature approach him, he felt that he had
never until then loved her so intensely. The first declaration of their
attachment was made during an accidental interview, but there is a
feeling of buoyant confidence that flashes up from the heart, when, at
the first concerted meeting of love we see the object of our affection
advance towards us,--for that deliberate act of a faithful heart
separates the beloved one, in imagination, to ourselves, and gives
a fulness to our enjoyment which melts us in an exulting tenderness
indescribable by language. Those who have doubted the punctuality of
some beloved girl, and afterwards seen her come, will allow that our
description of that rapturous moment is not overdrawn.

"My dear, dear Jane," exclaimed Osborne, taking her hand and placing her
beside him,

"I neither knew my own heart nor thee extent of its affection for
you until this meeting. In what terms shall I express--but I will not
attempt it--I cannot--but my soul burns with love for you, such as was
ever felt by mortal."

"It is my trust and confidence in your love that brings me here," she
replied; "and indeed, Charles, it is more than that--I know your health
is, at the best, easily affected, and your spirits naturally prone to
despondency; and I feared," said the artless girl, "that--that--indeed
I feared you might suffer pain, and that pain might bring on ill health
again."

"And I am so dear to you, Jane?"

Jane replied by a smile and looked inexpressibly tender.

"I am, I am!" he exclaimed with rapture; "and now the
world--life--nothing--nothing can add to the fulness of my happiness.
And your note, my beloved--the conclusion of it--your own Jane Sinclair!
But you must be more my own yet--legally and forever mine! Mine! Shall
I be able to bear it!--shall I? Jane?" sai