om the memory of tenderness that had already gone by. She knew Charles
Osborne only as a boy--a beautiful boy it is true--and he knew her only
as a graceful creature, whose extremely youthful appearance made it
difficult whether to consider her merely as an advanced girl, or as a
young female who had just passed into the first stage of womanhood. But
now her fancy and affection had both room to indulge in that vivacious
play which delights to paint a lover absent under such circumstances in
the richest hues of imaginary beauty.

"How will he look," she would say to her sister Agnes, "when he returns
a young man, settled into the fulness of his growth? Taller he will be,
and much more manly in his deportment. But is there no danger, Agnes, of
his losing in grace, in delicacy of complexion, in short, of losing in
beauty what he may gain otherwise?"

"No, my dear, not in the least; you will be ten times prouder of him
after his return than you ever were. There is something much more noble
and dignified in the love of a man than in that of a boy, and you will
feel this on seeing him."

"In that case, Agnes, I shall have to fall in love with him over again,
and to fall in love with the same individual twice, will certainly be
rather a novel case--a double passion, at least, you will grant, Agnes."

"But he will experience sensations quite as singular on seeing you, when
he returns. You are as much changed--improved I mean--in your person, as
he can be for his life. If he is now a fine, full-grown young man, you
are a tall, elegant--I don't, want to flatter you, Jane,--I need not say
graceful, for that you always were, but I may add with truth, a majestic
young woman. Why, you will scarcely know each other."

"You do flatter me, Agnes; but am I so much improved?"

"Indeed you are quite a different girl from what you were when he saw
you."

"I am glad of it; but as I told him once, it is on his account that I am
so glad; do you know, Agnes, I never was vain of my beauty until I saw
Charles?"

"Did you ever feel proud in being beautiful in the eyes of another,
Jane?"

"No, I never did--why should I?"

"Well, that is not vanity--it is only love visible in a different
aspect, and not the least amiable either, my dear."

"Well, I should be much more melancholy than I am, were not my fancy so
often engaged in picturing to myself the change which may be on him when
he returns. The feeling it occasions is novel and agree