Part 8 (1/2)

”Yes, love, do,” said her mother, ”that's a good girl. Let me see how cheerful and sprightly you'll be; and think, dear, of the happy days that are before you and Charles yet, when you'll live in love and affection, surrounded and cherished by both your families.”

”Yes, yes,” said she, ”I often think of that--I'll try mamma--I'll try.”

Saying which, she took Charles's arm, and the young persons all went out together.

Jane's place, that evening, was by Osborne's side, as it had been with something like a faint clinging of terror during the whole day. She spoke little, and might be said rather to respond to all he uttered, than to sustain a part in the dialogue. Her distress was a.s.suredly deep, but they knew not then, nor by any means suspected how fearful was its character in the remote and hidden depths of her soul. She sat with Osborne's right hand between hers, and scarcely for a moment ever took her sparkling eyes off his countenance. Many times was she observed to mutter to herself, and her lips frequently moved as if she had been speaking, but no words were uttered, nor any sense of her distress expressed. Once, only, in the course of the evening, were they startled into a hush of terror and dismay, by a single short laugh, uttered so loud and wildly, that a pause followed it, and, as if with one consentaneous movement, they all a.s.sembled about her. Their appearance, however, seemed to bring her to herself, for with her left hand she wafted them away, saying, ”Leave us--leave us--this is a day of sorrow to us--the day will end, but when, when, alas, will the sorrow? Papa, some of us will need your prayers now--the suns.h.i.+ne of Jane's life is over--I am the Fawn of Springvale no more--my time with the holy and affectionate flock of whom I was and am an unworthy one, will be short--I may be with you a day, as it were, the next is come and Jane is gone for ever.”

”Father,” said Osborne, ”I shall not go;” and as he spoke he pressed her to his bosom--”I will never leave her.”

The boy's tears fell rapidly upon her pale cheeks, and on feeling them she looked up and smiled.

The sobbings of the family were loud, and bitter were the tears which the tender position of the young and beautiful pair wrung from the eyes that looked upon them. ”Your health, my boy,” said his father, ”my beautiful and only boy, render it necessary that you should go. It is but for a time, Jane dear, my daughter, my boy's beloved, it is only for a time--let him leave you for a little, and he will return confirmed in health and knowledge, and worthy my dear, dear girl, to be yours for ever.”

”My daughter,” said Mr. Sinclair, ”was once good and obedient, and she will now do whatever is her own papa's wish.”

”Name it, papa, name it,” said she, still smiling.

”Suffer Charles to go, my darling--and do not--oh! do not take his departure so much to heart.”

”Charles, you must go,” said she. ”It is the wish of your own father and of mine--but above all, it is the wish of your own--you cannot, you must not gainsay him. What we can prosper which is founded on disobedience or deceit? You know the words you once loved so well to repeat--I will repeat them now--you must, you will not surely refuse the request of _your own Jane Sinclair_.”

The boy seemed for some time irresolute but at length he clasped her in his arms, and, again, said, in a vehement burst of tenderness:

”No, father, my heart is resolved, I will never leave her. It will kill me, it will lay me in an early grave, and you will have no son to look upon.”

”But you will see the heroic example that Jane will set you,” said Mr.

Sinclair, ”she will shame you into firmness, for she will now take leave of you at once; and see then if you love her as you say you do, whether you will not respect her so far as to follow her example. Jane, bid Charles farewell.”

This was, perhaps, pressing her strength too far; at all events, the injunction came so unexpectedly, that a pause followed it, and they waited with painful expectation to see what she would do. For upwards of a minute she sat silent, and her lips moved as if she were communing with herself. At length she rose up, and stooping down kissed her lover's cheek, then, taking his hand as before between hers, she said in a voice astonis.h.i.+ngly calm.

”Charles, farewell--remember that I am your Jane Sinclair. Alas!” she added, ”I am weak and feeble--help me out of the room.” Both her parents a.s.sisted her to leave it, but, on reaching the door, she drew back involuntarily, on hearing Osborne's struggles to detain her.

”Papa,” she said, with a look inexpressibly wobegone and suppliant--”Mamma!” ”Sweet child, what is it?” said both. ”Let me take one last look of him--it will be the last--but not--I--I trust, the last act of my duty to you both.”

She turned round and gazed upon him for some time--her features, as she looked, dilated into an expression of delight.

”Is he not,” said she, in a low placid whisper, while her smiling eye still rested upon him--”is he not beautiful? Oh! yes, he is beautiful--he is beautiful.”

”He is, darling--he is,” said both--”come away now--be only a good firm girl and all will soon be well.”

”Very, very beautiful,” said she, in a low contented voice, as without any further wish to remain, she accompanied her parents to another room.

Such was their leaving-taking--thus did they separate. Did they ever meet!

PART III.

In the history of the affections we know that circ.u.mstances sometimes occur, where duty and inclination maintain a conflict so nicely balanced so as to render it judicious not to exact a fulfillment of the former, lest by deranging the structure of our moral feelings, we render the mind either insensible to their existence, or incapable of regulating them. This observation applies only to those subordinate positions of life which involve no great principle of conduct, and violate no cardinal point of human duty. We ought neither to do evil nor suffer evil to be done, where our authority can prevent it, in order that good may follow. But in matters where our own will creates the offence, it is in some peculiar cases not only prudent but necessary to avoid straining a mind naturally delicate, beyond the powers which we know it to possess. We think, for instance, that it was wrong in Mr. Sinclair, at a moment when the act of separating from Osborne might have touched, the feelings of his daughter into that softness which lightens and relieves the heart, abruptly to suppress emotions so natural, by exacting a proof of obedience too severe and oppressive to the heart of one who loved as Jane did. She knew it was her duty to obey him the moment he expressed his wish; but he was bound by no duty to demand such an unnecessary proof of her obedience. The immediate consequences, however, made him sufficiently sensible of his error, and taught him that a knowledge of the human heart is the most difficult task which a parent has to learn.

Jane, conducted by her parents, having reached another apartment, sat down--her father taking a chair on one side, and her mother on the other.