who have been foredoomed--like me. Oh
misery, misery, is there no hope? nothing but despair for one so young,
and as they said, so gentle, and so beautiful, Alas! alas! Death to me
now is no consoler!"

She clasped her beautiful hands together as she spoke, and looked with
a countenance so full of unutterable woe that no heart could avoid
participating in her misery.

"Jane, oh darling of all our hearts," said her weeping mother, "will you
not come over and sit beside your mamma--your mamma, my treasure, who
feels that she cannot long live to witness what you suffer."

"The Fawn of Springvale," she proceeded, "the gentle Fawn of Springvale,
for it was on the account of my gentleness I was so called, is
stricken--the arrow is here--in her poor broken heart; and what did she
do, what did the gentle creature do to suffer or to deserve all this
misery?"

"True, my sister--too true, too true," said Maria, bursting into an
agony of bitter sorrow; "what strange mystery is in the gentle one's
affliction? Surely, if there was ever a spotless or a sinless creature
on earth, she was and is that creature."

"Beware of murmuring, Maria," said her father; "the purpose, though
at present concealed, may yet become sufficiently apparent for us to
recognize in it the benignant dispensation of a merciful God. Our duty,
my dear child, is now to bear, and be resigned. The issues of this sad
calamity are with the Almighty, and with Him let us patiently leave
them."

"Had I never disclosed my love," proceeded Jane, "I might have stolen
quietly away from them all and laid my cheek on that hardest pillow
which giveth the soundest sleep; but would not concealment," she added,
starting; "would not that too have been dissimulation? Oh God help
me!--it is, it is clear that in any event I was foredoomed!"

Agnes, who had watched her sister with an interest too profound to
suffer even the grief necessary on such an occasion to take place, now
went over, and taking her hand in one of hers, placed the fingers of the
other upon her sister's cheek, thus attempting to fix Jane's eyes upon
her own countenance--

"Do you not know who it is," said she, "that is now speaking to
you?--Look upon me, and tell me do you forget me so soon?"

"Who can tell yet," she proceeded, "who can tell yet--time may retrieve
all, and he may return: but the yew tree--I fear--I fear--why, it is
an emblem of death; and perhaps death may unite us--yes, and I say he
wil