Jane looked up with a pensive gaze into Agnes’s face, and as she calmly dried her sister’s tears, said:—
“Is it not strange, Agnes, that I who am the Queen of Sorrow cannot weep. I resemble some generous princess, who though rich, gives away her wealth to the needy in such abundance that she is always poor herself. I who weep not, supply you all with tears, and cannot find one for myself when I want it. Indeed so it seems, my sister.”
“It is true, indeed, Jane—too true, too true, my darling.”
“Agnes, I could tell you a secret. It is not without reason that I am the Queen of Sorrow.”
“Alas, it is not, my sweet innocent.”
“I have the secret here,” said she, putting her hand to her bosom, “and no one suspects that I have. The cause why I am the Queen of Sorrow is indeed here—here. But come, I do not much like this arbor somehow. There is, I think, a reason for it, but I forget it. Let us walk elsewhere.”
This was the arbor of osiers in which Osborne in the enthusiasm of his passion, said that if during his travels he found a girl more beautiful, he would cease to love Jane, and to write to her—an expression which, as the reader knows, exercised afterwards a melancholy power upon her intellect.
Agnes and she proceeded as she desired, to saunter about, which they did for the most part in silence, except when she wished to stop and make an observation of her own free will. Her step was slow, her face pale, and her gait, alas, quite feeble, and evidently that of a worn frame and a broken heart.
For some time past, she seemed to have forgotten that she was a foredoomed creature, and a cast-away, at least her allusions to this were less frequent than before—a circumstance which Dr. M’Cormick said he looked upon as the most favorable symptom he had yet seen in her case.
Upon this day, however, she sauntered about in silence, and passed from place to place, followed by Agnes; like the waning moon, accompanied by her faithful and attendant star.