n was now marked
by despondency and by tears, for the most part shed during their
confidential interviews with each other. In company they were silent and
dejected, and ever as their eyes met in long and loving glances, they
could scarcely repress their grief. Sometimes, indeed, Jane on being
spoken to, after a considerable silence, would attempt in vain to reply,
her quivering voice and tearful eyes affording unequivocal proof of the
subject which engaged her heart. Their friends, of course, endeavored
to console and sustain them on both sides; and frequently succeeded
in soothing them into a childlike resignation to the necessity that
occasioned the dreary period of absence that lay before them. These
intervals of patience, however, did not last long; the spirits of our
young lovers were, indeed, disquieted within them, and the heart of each
drooped under the severest of all its calamities--the pain of loss for
that object which is dearest to its affections.

It was arranged that, on the day previous to Charles' departure,
Osborne's family should dine at Mr. Sinclair's; for they knew that the
affliction caused by their separation would render it necessary that
Jane, on that occasion, should be under her own roof, and near the
attention and aid of her friends. Mr. Osborne almost regretted the
resolution to which he had come of sending his son to travel, for he
feared that the effect of absence from the fair girl to whom he was so
deeply attached, might possibly countervail the benefits arising from a
more favorable climate; but as he had already engaged the services of an
able and experienced tutor, who on two or three previous occasions had
been over the Continent, he expected, reasonably enough, that novelty,
his tutor's good sense, and the natural elasticity of youth would soon
efface a sorrow in general so transient, and in due time restore him to
his usual spirits. He consequently adhered to his resolution--the day of
departure was fixed, and arrangements made for the lovers to separate,
as we have already intimated.

Jane Sinclair, from the period when Osborne's attachment and hers was
known and sanctioned by their friends, never slept a night from her
beloved sister Agnes; nor had any other person living, not even Osborne
himself, such an opportunity as Agnes had of registering in the record
of a sisterly heart so faithful a transcript of her love.

On the night previous to their leave taking, Agnes was astoni