No long period of observation was required after Colin's arrival at Mr. Calvert's, to enable him to discover that deep anxiety, and care, and watchfulness, now reigned throughout that house touching her, his own beloved, who so lately was as its life-spring and delight. The absence of joy, if not the positive presence of melancholy, was visible in every countenance. The voices that spoke, spoke in a lower tone than formerly; while those of Mr. and Mrs. Calvert were seldom heard at all. The blinds of the windows seemed to be permanently kept more than usually low;--unconsciously, perhaps, on the part of the inmates of the place; but, then, that little circumstance agreed with the general tone of their feelings, and so it became as it were natural. He also observed, that though it was that precise time of day when a canary bird that hung in the sitting-room usually sang so gladly as to make itself heard nearly over the whole house, the singing bird was now mute. A piece of white muslin that had been thrown over his cage many hours ago to keep off the sun, had ever since been forgotten. It kept him silent; yet strange enough, nobody appeared to miss his singing, nor to think a moment of the little ruffled and discontented heap of living music that fretted in gloomy silence beneath. At length, Jane, who, he had previously been informed, had lately confined herself almost wholly to her own chamber, was introduced by her sister; the latter having, with careful consideration, already cautiously communicated to her the fact of the arrival of her brother Roger, and of Colin. “How changed!” thought Colin as his spirit absolutely shrank at the first sight of her. “How like a creature whose heart is gone,--all whose ties to the world are rapidly loosening, and who soon must be caught back to the earth, or the chance will be lost for ever.” In her face was written, as all might read, that _the past_ was all of a pleasant existence she should ever look upon. Yet when she saw him,--though all the family was around,--though all eyes were upon her,--though the father looked solemn, and the mother half chidingly; she at once flew towards him with the joy of a lark upwards. For what was all the world besides,--its thoughts, and sayings, and opinions,--what were they now to her? Nature was nature in her bosom,--pure, frank, and virtuous; and her feelings those which Heaven had planted there for the wisest, the best, and the happiest purposes. At this affecting sight her mother sobbed aloud; Mr. Calvert turned away, and pressed the tears back into his eyes in silence. Her sister seized her hands in hers, and as she pressed them with a loving pressure entreated her to be composed. Her elder brother sat mute, looking seriously on the floor; while honest Roger, himself, with the tears bursting from his eyes, struck his hand upon the table, in a sudden agony of goodwill, and exclaimed, “She _shall_ have him, I say!”