With such a man, and in a family with such an attraction in it as the one I have before described, it is not to be wondered at that Colin soon found himself happier than ever he could have believed. His own good looks and love of learning recommended him, while the natural powers of his mind carried him through, where else, perhaps, his previous want of habitual intercourse with similar society might have exposed him to inevitable annoyances. Happiness, however, and especially in love, seems to have been considered in the economy of human nature,--like the sun-light in the world,--as too bright to endure without intervals of darkness and of shade. Not long had Colin and Jane Calvert been thus acquainted,--they had just learned to speak confidingly, and to breathe to each other those thoughts which before had only trembled on the lips and been stifled in the utterance,--when Colin was astonished and surprised to find in the behaviour of Mr. Calvert a marked and strong difference from that which hitherto he had pursued towards him. It was not essentially less kind than before, but seemed more marked by regret than by offence; as though the bosom in which it originated felt like that of a friend who secretly knows that he must part,--not that he would, or wished to do so. Jane, too, seemed downcast; but her regret spoke in her eyes, not words: in long painful suspenses of thought, as it seemed,--though in reality in deep worlds of thought traced out in the brain until they seemed to have no end. And then sometimes, when her father, or her mother, or brother, or sister, chanced to catch a momentary glance of her countenance,--they would find those pretty eyes wet, as if the little well-spring within _would_ come to the top and overflow in spite of her. Did they ask her what was the matter, she smiled without feeling, and replied,--“Nothing!” But instantly she would leave the room and go alone to her own chamber; thus telling it was something, though a something not to be told. And little do I know of human nature if, when there, those tears, denied innocently by the tongue a moment before, did not fall rapidly as she clasped her hands over a little bible which lay on a white cushion by her bedside, and prayed voicelessly that she, and he she loved, might yet be happy. These things, it was observed by Colin, first occurred some short time after Mr. Lup-ton and Mr. Calvert had had an interview of several hours' duration in a private room; and during which, he now felt little doubt, the question of the possible future union of the young people had been seriously discussed.