If the truth were told, I should tell how all that night poor Jane's heart throbbed incessantly, and sometimes, in correspondence with her thoughts, leaped suddenly as if it would go out of its place, I should tell how she never slept a single wink;--how earnestly she said her prayers, and how long! How, after many hesitations, and at last with many tears, she eventually put her trembling hand to the reluctant, yet loving, task of putting up such trinkets and jewellery as could not be dispensed with,--while her maid, as busy and as pleased as a summer bee, employed herself in a similar task with her dresses. And then, when all was over, how she stood silent awhile, looking on those places and around that room, which to-morrow her mother should find empty, and which now for the last time beheld her who had tenanted and adorned it from her childhood. That glass might never look upon her face again, which had seen her beauty grow up from pretty girlishness to perfect womanhood. That window would never more have the same eyes through it that had become familiar there--nor those leaves any more be put aside by the fingers that had so often saved them unbruised, when the little casement was closed for the night. I should tell how, as these and similar thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, the tears stole silently down her cheeks until she sank upon her chair, and declared, while she did so, that she should never have the heart to go! But the heart has a way of its own sometimes, and sudden courage on occasion which it has not resolutions to contemplate beforehand. So, after the night had worn away, and when the time came for flight,--before yet the stars were gone, or any light more than a first dim gleam on a black ground, was seen in the east,--she plucked up resolution to be firm, but lost it again immediately, for the sound of a carriage wheels--_the_ carriage that was to whirl her away from her old home to a new life in a new place--faintly but distinctly came upon her ear. “'Tis he!” she exclaimed. “Truly, ma'am, I hope so,” replied the maid, “for I want to see you safe off and happy.” “Hush!” said Jane, in a whisper; “listen, listen!”