and mamma, and William, and my darling Maria--but,
Maria, listen,--I won't have a tear, and you, Agnes,--I am come now to
tell you a secret."

"And, dearest life," said her mother, "what is it?"

"What made them call me the Fawn of Springvale?"

"For your gentleness, love," said Mr. Sinclair.

"And for your beauty, darling," added her mother.

"Papa has it," she replied quickly; "for my gentleness, for my
gentleness. My beauty, mamma, I am not beautiful."

While uttering these words, she approached the looking-glass, and
surveyed herself with a smile of irony that seemed to disclaim her own
assertion. But it was easy to perceive that the irony was directed to
some one not then present, and that it was also associated with the
memory of something painful to her in an extreme degree.

Not beautiful! Never did mortal form gifted with beauty approaching
nearer to our conception of the divine or angelic, stand smiling in the
consciousness of its own charms before a mirror.

"Now," she proceeded, "I am going to make everything quite plain. I
never told you this before, but it is time I should now. Listen--Charles
Osborne bound himself by a curse, that if he met, during his absence,
a girl more beautiful than I am--or than I was then, I should say,--he
would cease to write to me--he would cease to love me. Now, here's my
secret,--he has found a girl more beautiful than I am,--than I was then,
I, mean,--for he has ceased to write to me--and of course he has
ceased to love me. So mamma, I am not beautiful, and the Fawn of
Springvale--his own Jane Sinclair is forgotten."

She sat down and hung her head for some minutes, and the family,
thinking that she either wept or was about to weep, did not think it
right to address her. She rose up, however, and said:

"Agnes is my witness: Did not you, Agnes, say that I am now much
handsomer than when Charles saw me last?"

"I did, darling, and I do."

"Very well, mamma--perhaps you will find me beautiful yet. Now the case
is this, and I will be guided by my papa. Let me see--Charles may
have seen a girl more beautiful than I was then,--but how does he know
whether she is more beautiful than I am now?"

It was--it was woful to see a creature of such unparalleled grace and
loveliness working out the calculations of insanity, in order to sustain
a broken heart.

"But then," she added, still smiling in conscious beauty, "why does he
not come to see me now? Why does he not come