Jane’s distress, at concealing the cause of her absence from prayers, though acute at the moment of enquiry, was nevertheless more transient than one might suppose from the alarming effects it produced. Her mind was at the time in a state of tumult and excitement, such as she had never till then experienced, and the novel guilt of dissimulation, by superinducing her first impression of deliberate crime, opposed itself so powerfully to the exulting sense of her newborn happiness, that both produced a shock of conflicting emotions which a young mind, already so much exhausted, could not resist. She felt, therefore, that a strange darkness shrouded her intellect, in which all distinct traces of thought, and all memory of the past were momentarily lost. Her frame, too, at the best but slender and much enfeebled by the preceding interview with Osborne, and her present embarrassment, could not bear up against this chaotic struggle between delight and pain. It was, no doubt, impossible for her relatives to comprehend all this, and hence their alarm. She was too pure and artless to be suspected of concealing the truth; and they consequently entertained not the slightest suspicion of that kind; but still their affections were aroused, and what might have terminated in an ordinary manner, ended in that unusual mood we have described.
With a scrupulous attention to her father’s precept, as well as from a principle of early and sincere piety, she strove on reaching her bedroom to compose her mind in prayer, and to beg the pardon of Heaven for her wilful suppression of the truth. This was a task, however, to which she was altogether unequal. In vain she uttered words expressive of her sorrow, and gave language to sentiments of deep repentance; there was but one idea, but one image in her mind, viz.: her beautiful boy, and the certainty that she was the object of his love. Again and again she attempted to pray, but still with the same success. It was to no purpose that she resolved to banish him from her thoughts, until at least the solemn act of her evening-worship should be concluded; for ere she had uttered half a sentence the image would return, as if absolutely to mock her devotions. In this manner she continued for some time, striving to advance with a sincere heart in her address to heaven; again recommencing with a similar purpose, and as often losing herself in those visions that wrapped her spirit in their transports. At length she arose, and for a moment felt a deep awe fall upon her. The idea that she could not pray, seemed to her as a punishment annexed, by God to her crime of having tampered with the love of truth, and disregarded her father’s injunctions not to violate it. But this, also, soon passed away: she lay down, and at once surrendered her heart and thought and fancy to the power of that passion, which, like the jealous tyrant of the East, seemed on this occasion resolved to bear no virtue near the heart in which it sat enthroned. Such, however, was not its character, as the reader will learn when he proceeds; true love being in our opinion rather the guardian of the other virtues than their foe.
The next morning, when Jane awoke, the event of yesterday flashed on her memory with a thrill of pleasure that made her start up in a recumbent posture in the bed. Her heart bounded, her pulse beat high, and a sudden sensation of hysterical delight rushed to her throat with a transport that would have been painful, did she not pass out of a state of such panting ecstacy and become dissolved in tears. She wept, but how far did she believe the cause of her emotion to be removed from sorrow? She wept, yet alas! alas! never did tears of such delight flow from a source that drew a young heart onward to greater darkness and desolation. Weep on, fair girl, in thy happiness; for the day will come when thou will not be able to find one tear in thy misery!
Her appearance the next morning exhibited to the family no symptoms of illness. On the contrary, she never looked better, indeed seldom so well. Her complexion was clearer than usual, her spirit more animated, and the dancing light of her eye plainly intimated by its sparkling that her young heart was going on the way of its love rejoicing. Her family were agreeably surprised at this, especially when they reflected upon their anxiety concerning her on the preceding night. To her distress on that occasion they made not the slightest allusion; they felt it sufficient that the beloved of their hearts was well, and that from the evident flow of her spirits there existed no rational ground for any apprehension respecting her. After breakfast she sat sewing for some time with her sisters, but it was evident that her mind was not yet sufficiently calm to permit her as formerly to sustain a proper part in their conversation. Ever and anon they could observe by the singular light which sparkled in her eyes, as with a sudden rush of joy, that her mind, was engaged on some other topic, and this at a moment when some appeal or interrogatory to herself rendered such abstracted enjoyment more obvious. Sensible, therefore, of her incompetency as yet to regulate her imagination so as to escape notice, she withdrew in about an hour to her own room, there once more to give loose to indulgence.
Our readers may perceive that the position of Jane Sinclair, in her own family, was not very favorable to the formation of a firm character. The regulation of a mind so imaginative, and of feelings so lively and susceptible, required a hand of uncommon skill and delicacy. Indeed her case was one of unusual difficulty. In the first place, her meekness and extreme sweetness of temper rendered it almost impossible in a family where her own qualities predominated, to find any deviation from duty which might be seized upon without harshness as a pretext for inculcating those precautionary principles that were calculated to strengthen the weak points which her character may have presented. Even those weak points, if at the time they could be so termed, were perceptible only in the exercise of her virtues, so that it was a matter of some risk, especially in the case of one so young, to reprove an excess on the right side, lest in doing so you checked the influence of the virtue that accompanied it. Such errors, if they can be called so, when occurring in the conduct of those whom we love, are likely to call forth any thing but censure. It is naturally supposed, and in general with too much truth, that time and experience will remove the excess, and leave the virtue not more than equal to the demands of life upon it. Her mother, however, was, as the reader may have found, by no means ignorant of those traits a the constitution of her mind from which danger or happiness might ultimately be apprehended; neither did he look on them With indifference. In truth, they troubled him much, and on more than one occasion he scrupled not fully to express his fears of, their result. It was he, the reader perceives, who on the evening of her first interview with Osborne, gave so gloomy a tone to the feelings of the family, and impressed them at all events more deeply than they otherwise would have felt with a vague presentiment of some unknown evil that was to befall her. She was, however, what is termed, the pet of the family, the centre to which all their affections turned; and as she herself felt conscious of this, there is little doubt that the extreme indulgence, and almost blameable tenderness which they exercised towards her, did by imperceptible degrees disqualify her from undergoing with firmness those conflicts of the heart, to which a susceptibility of the finer emotions rendered her peculiarly liable. Indeed among the various errors prevalent in domestic life, there is scarcely one that has occasioned more melancholy consequences than that of carrying indulgence towards a favorite child too far; and creating, under the slightest instances of self-denial, a sensitiveness or impatience, arising from a previous habit of being gratified in all the whims and caprices, of childhood or youth. The fate of favorite children in life is almost proverbially unhappy, and we doubt not that if the various lunatic receptacles were examined, the malady, in a majority of cases, might be traced to an excess of indulgence and want of proper discipline in early life. Had Mr. Sinclair insisted on knowing from his daughter’s lips the cause of her absence from prayers, and given a high moral proof of the affection he bore her, it is probable that the consciousness on her part of his being cognizant of her passion, would have kept it so far within bounds as to submit to the control of reason instead of ultimately subverting it. This, however, he unhappily omitted to do, not because he was at all ignorant that a strict sense of duty, and a due regard for his daughter’s welfare, demanded it; but because her distress, and the childlike simplicity with which she cast herself upon his bosom, touched his spirit, and drew forth all the affection of a parent who “loved not wisely but too well.”
Let not my readers, however, condemn him too harshly for this, for alas, he paid, in the bitterness of a father’s misery, a woeful and mysterious penalty of a father’s weakness. His beloved one went before, and the old man could not remain behind her; but their sorrows have passed away, and both now enjoy that peace, which, for the last few years of their lives, the world did not give them.
From this time forth Jane’s ear listened only to the music of a happy heart, and her eye saw nothing but the beauty of that vision which shone in her pure bosom like the star of evening in some limpid current that glides smoothly between rustic meadows, on whose green banks the heart is charmed into happiness by the distant hum of pastoral life.
Love however will not be long without its object, nor can the soul be happy in the absence of its counterpart. For some time after the interview in which the passion of our young lovers was revealed, Jane found solitude to be the same solace to her love, that human sympathy is to affliction. The certainty that she was now beloved, caused her heart to lapse into those alternations of repose and enjoyment which above all other states of feeling nourish its affections. Indeed the change was surprising which she felt within her and around her. On looking back, all that portion of her life that had passed before her attachment to Osborne, seemed dark and without any definite purpose. She wondered at it as at a mystery which she could not solve; it was only now that she lived; her existence commenced, she thought, with her passion, and with it only she was satisfied it could cease. Nature wore in her eyes a new aspect, was clothed with such beauty, and breathed such a spirit of love and harmony, as she only perceived now for the first time. Her parents were kinder and better she thought than they had before appeared to her, and her sisters and brother seemed endued with warmer affections and blighter virtues than they had ever possessed. Every thing near her and about her partook in a more especial manner of this delightful change; the servants were won by sweetness so irresistible—the dogs were more kindly caressed, and Ariel—her own Ariel was, if possible, more beloved.
Oh why—why is not love so pure and exalted as this, more characteristic of human attachments? And why is it that affection, as exhibited in general life, is so rarely seen unstained by the tint of some darker passion? Love on, fair girl—love on in thy purity and innocence! The beauty that thou seest in nature, and the music it sends forth, exist only in thy own heart, and the light which plays around thee like a glory, is only the reflection of that image whose lustre has taken away the shadows from thy spirit!
In the mean time the heart, as we said, will, after the repose which must follow excitement, necessarily move towards that object in which it seeks its ultimate enjoyment. A week had now elapsed, and Jane began to feel troubled by the absence of her lover. Her eye wished once more to feast upon his beauty, and her ear again to drink in the melody of his voice. It was true—it was surely true—and she put her long white fingers to her forehead while thinking of him—yes, yes—it was true that he loved her—but her heart called again for his presence, and longed to hear him once more repeat, in fervid accents of eloquence the enthusiasm of his passion.