, "can you not weep
for your fault. Tears of repentance can wipe out any crime. Weep, my
child, weep, and it will relieve your heart."

"I would like to see my papa," she replied. "I should be glad to hear
that he forgives me: how glad! how glad! That's all that troubles your
poor Jane; all in the world that troubles her poor heart--I think."

These words were uttered in a tone of such deep and inexpressible
misery, and with such an innocent and childlike unconsciousness of the
calamity which weighed her down that no heart possessing common humanity
could avoid being overcome.

"Look on me, love," exclaimed her father. "Your papa is here, ready to
pity and forgive you."

"William," said Agnes, "a thought strikes me,--the air that Charles
played when they first met has been her favorite ever since you know
it--go get your flute and play it with as much feeling as you can."

Jane made no reply to her father's words. She sat musing, and once or
twice put up her hand to her sidelocks, but immediately withdrew it, and
again fell into a reverie. Sometimes her face brightened into the fatal
smile, and again became overshadowed with a gloom that seemed to
proceed from a feeling of natural grief. Indeed the play of meaning and
insanity, as they chased each other over a countenance so beautiful, was
an awful sight, even to an indifferent beholder, much less to those who
then stood about her.

William in about a minute returned with his flute, and placing himself
behind her, commenced the air in a spirit more mournful probably than
any in which it had ever before been played. For a long time she noticed
it not: that is to say, she betrayed no external marks of attention to
it. They could perceive, however, that although she neither moved nor
looked around her, yet the awful play of her features ceased, and; their
expression became more intelligent and natural. At length she sighed
deeply several times, though without appearing to hear the music; and at
length, without uttering a word to any one of them, she laid her head I
upon her father's bosom, and the tears fell; in placid torrents down her
cheeks. By a signal from his hand, Mr. Sinclair intimated that for the
present they should be silent; and by another addressed to William, that
he should play on. He did so, and she wept copiously under the influence
of that charmed melody for more than twenty minutes.

"It would be well for me," she at length said, "that is, I fear