“I think it is better, papa; but one can form no opinion so soon.”
“Go, show it to your mamma—she is the best doctor among us—follow her advice, and no doubt she will add its cure to the other triumphs of her skill.”
“Jane is fretting too much about it,” observed Agnes; “why, Jane, you are just now as pale as young Osborne himself.”
This observation turned the eyes of the family upon her; but scarcely had her sister uttered the words when the young creature’s countenance became the color of crimson, so deeply, and with such evident confusion did she blush. Indeed she felt conscious of this, for she rose, with the wounded dove lying gently between her hands and bosom, and passed, without speaking, out of the room.
“Don’t you think, papa,” observed Miss Sinclair, “that there is a striking resemblance between young Osborne and Jane? I could not help remarking it.”
“There decidedly is, Maria, now that you mentioned it,” said William.
The father paused a little, as if to consider the matter, and then added with a smile—
“It is very singular, Mary; but indeed I think there is—both in the style of their features and their figure.”
“Osborne is too handsome for a man,” observed Agnes; “yet, after all, one can hardly say so, his face, though fine, is not feminine.”
“Beauty, my children!—alas, what is it? Often—too often, a fearful, a fatal gift. It is born with us, and not of our own merit; yet we are vain enough to be proud of it. It is at best a flower that soon fades—a light that soon passes away. Oh! what is it when contrasted with those high principles whose beauty is immortal, which brighten by age, and know neither change nor decay. There is Jane—my poor child—she is indeed very beautiful and graceful, yet I often fear that her beauty, joined as it is to an over-wrought sensibility, may, before her life closes, occasion much sorrow either to herself or others.”