a-like and divine to her beauty. Osborne sat, and for a long time
gazed upon her with a silent intensity of rapture for which he could
find no words. At length he exclaimed in a reverie--

"I will swear it--I may swear it."

"Swear what, Charles?"

"That the moment I see a girl more beautiful, I will cease to write to
you--I will cease to love you."

The blood instantly forsook her cheeks, and she gazed at him with wonder
and dismay.

"What, dear Charles, do you mean?"

"Oh, my pride and my treasure!" he exclaimed, wildly clasping her to
his bosom--"there is none so fair--none on earth or in heaven itself so
beautiful--that, my own ever dearest, is my meaning."

The confidence of her timid and loving heart was instantly restored--and
she said smiling, yet with a tear struggling through her eyelid, "I
believe I am I think I am beautiful. I know they call me the Fawn of
Springvale, because I am gentle."

"The angels are not so gentle, nor so pure, nor so innocent as you are,
my un-wedded wife."

"I am glad I am," she replied; "and I am glad, too, that I am
beautiful--but it is all on your account, and for your sake, dear
Charles."

The fascination--the power of such innocence, and purity, and love,
utterly overcame him, and he wept in transport upon her bosom.

The approach of her sisters, however, and the liveliness of Agnes, soon
changed the character of their dialogue. For an hour they ran and chased
each other, and played about, after which Charles took his leave of
them for the evening. Jane, as usual, being the last he parted from,
whispered to him,as he went--

"Charles, promise me, that in future you won't repeat--the--the words
you used in, the summer-house."

"What words, love?" "You remember--about--about--what you said you might
_swear_--and that, in that case, you would cease to love me."

"Why dearest, should I promise you this?" "Because," she said, in a low,
sweet whisper, "they disturb me when I think of them--a slight thing
makes my heart sink."

"You are a foolish, sweet girl--but I promise you, I shall never again
use them."

She bestowed on him a look and smile that were more than a sufficient
compensation for this; and after again bidding him farewell, she tripped
lightly into the house.

From this onward, until the day of their separation, the spirits of our
young lovers were more and more overcast, and the mirthful intercourse
of confident love altogether gone. Their communio