After singing the words of Moore with all the unregulated pathos of a
maniac, she wrung her hands, and was for a considerable time silent.
During this interval she sighed deeply, and after a pause of half an
hour arose suddenly, and seizing her father by the breast of the coat,
brought him over, and placed him on the sofa beside her. She then looked
earnestly into his face, and was about to speak, but her thoughts were
too weak for the task, and after putting her hand to her forehead, as
if to assist her recollection, she let it fall passively beside her, and
hung-her head in a mood, partaking at once of childish pique and deep
dejection.

The doctor, who watched her closely, observed, that in his opinion the
consequences of the unhappy intelligence that day communicated to her,
had not yet fully developed themselves. "The storm has not yet burst,"
he added, "but it is quite evident that the elements for it are fast
gathering. She will certainly have a glimpse of reason before the
paroxysms appear, because, in point of fact, that is what will induce
them."

"How soon, doctor," asked her mother, "do you think she will have to
encounter this fresh and woeful trial?"

"I should be disposed to think within the lapse of twenty-four hours;
certainly within forty-eight."

The amiable doctor's opinion, however, was much more quickly verified
than he imagined; for Jane, whose heart yearned towards her father with
the beautiful instinct of an affection which scarcely insanity itself
could overcome, once more looked earnestly into his face, with an eye in
which meaning and madness seemed to struggle for the mastery. She gazed
at him for a long time, put her hands upon his white hair, into which
she gently twined her long white fingers; once or twice she smiled, and
said something in a voice too low to be heard: but all at once she gave
a convulsive start, clasped her hands wofully, and throwing herself on
his bosom, exclaimed:

"Oh papa, papa--your child is lost: pray for me--pray for me."

Her sobs became too thick and violent for further utterance; she panted
and wrought strongly, until at length she lay with locked teeth and
clenched hands struggling in a fit which eventually, by leaving her,
terminated in a state of lethargic insensibility.

For upwards of three days she suffered more than any person unacquainted
with her delicacy of constitution could deem her capable of enduring.
And, indeed, were it not that the aid