uttered that word,—'very well,' Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?"
"I believe I am."
"Believe! What is the matter?—Tell me what you feel."
"I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come charged?"
"This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over excited, or over fatigued."
"Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?"
"Calm?—no: but happy,—to the heart's core."
I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed.
"Give me your confidence, Jane," he said: "relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?—that I shall not prove a good husband?"
"It is the idea farthest from my thoughts."
"Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?—of the new life into which you are passing?"
