And while they were bowing together, Sybil was watching mischievously to see what effect the dazzling beauty of Rosa Blondelle would have upon Lyon Berners.

She saw it!

After bowing, they lifted their heads and looked at each other—he, at first, with the courtesy of a host—but she with a radiant and enchanting smile.

Sybil was prepared to see Lyon's surprise at the first view of this peerless creature; but she was by no means prepared to witness the involuntary gaze of intense and breathless admiration and wonder that he fixed for a moment on her beautiful face. That gaze said as eloquently as words could have spoken:

"This is the most wondrous, perfect creature that the world ever saw! This is the master-piece of nature."

With the sunlight of her smile still shining on him, Rosa held out her hand, and said in the sweetest tones:

"Sir, I have no words good enough to tell you how deeply I feel your kindness and that of your dear wife to me."

"Dear lady, Mrs. Berners and myself do but gratify our own tastes in trying to serve you; for it will be a great happiness to us if we succeed in doing so," replied Lyon Berners, with a look and tone that proved his perfect sincerity and earnestness.

As thus they smiled and glanced, and spoke to each other, Sybil also glanced from the one to the other; a sudden pang shot through her heart, exciting a nameless dread in her mind. "Even so quickly may one catch the plague!"

"Let me lead you to the table," said Mr. Berners, offering his arm to Mrs. Blondelle, and conducting her to her place.

Above all, Sybil was a lady; for she was a Berners. So, with this strange wound in her heart, this vague warning in her mind, she took her seat at the head of her table and did its honors with her usual courtesy and grace.

Mr. Berners seconded his wife in all hospitable attentions to their beautiful young guest.

While they were all still seated at the table, a groom rapped at the door and reported the stage-coach ready.

They all arose in a hurry, and began to make the last hasty preparations for departure.

Mrs. Blondelle hurried into her own room, to have her luggage taken down stairs to be put on the coach, and also to summon her nurse with the child.

When Sybil Berners found herself for a moment alone with her husband, she laid her hand upon his coat sleeve to stay him, in his haste, and she inquired:

"What do you think of her now?"

"I think, my darling Sybil, that you were right in your judgment of this lady. And I agree with you perfectly. I think, my only love, that in what you have done for this stranger, you have acted not only with the goodness, but with the wisdom of an angel," replied Lyon Berners, snatching her suddenly to his heart, and holding her closely there while he pressed kiss after kiss upon her crimson lip; and murmured:

"I must steal a kiss from these sweet lips when and wherever I can, my own one, since we are not to be much alone together now."

And then he released her, and hurried off to put on his overcoat.

Sybil stood for a minute, smiling, where he had left her, and so happy that she forgot she had to get ready to go. The pain was gone from her heart, and the cloud from her brain.

And as yet, so little did she know of herself or others, that she could not have told why the pain and the cloud ever came, or why they ever went away.

As yet she did not know that her husband's admiring smiles given to a rival beauty had really caused her nameless suffering; or that it was his loving caresses, bestowed upon herself, that had soothed it.

In a word, Sybil Berners, the young bride, did not dream that the bitter, bitter seed of JEALOUSY was germinating in her heart, to grow and spread perhaps into a deadly upas of the soul, destroying all moral life around it.



CHAPTER VII.

DOWN IN THE DARK VALE.

Where rose the mountains, there for her were friends, Where fell the valley, therein was her home; Where the steep rock and dizzy peak ascends, She had the passion and the power to roam. The crag, the forest, cavern, torrent's foam, Were unto her companions, and they spake A natural language clearer than the tone Of her best books, which she would oft forsake For Nature's pages, lit by moonbeams on the lake.—BYRON.

Jealousy, once called to life in any human heart, is not easily to be destroyed. Sybil Berners' almost unconscious jealousy suddenly called into existence, and as suddenly soothed to sleep, was awakened again by something that occurred just as the travellers were about to start.

It was the merest trifle, yet one of those trifles which turn the course of fate just as surely as the little switch of the railroad controls the direction of the train.

The travellers were just entering the stage-coach. Mr. Berners handed in first Mrs. Blondelle, then Mrs. Berners, and then he himself entered.

"You sit down here in this right-hand corner, Lyon, dear, and I will sit in the middle next to you, and Mrs. Blondelle shall sit in the left-hand corner next to me," said Sybil, still standing while she pointed out their several places on the back seat; and she spoke perhaps under the influence of a latent jealousy, that instigated her to place herself between her husband and her guest, for that long journey.

"No, no, my dear, not so; but if you will change places with me and take the right-hand corner-seat, while our fair friend occupies the left-hand one, I will sit between you two ladies, the proverbial 'thorn between two roses,'" replied Lyon Berners, gayly and gallantly, with perhaps on his side a latent desire to sit next the beautiful blonde, but also quite unconscious of how these words had disappointed and wounded her whom he would not have willingly wronged for the world.

Sybil silently took her seat, leaving the others to follow her example. Mr. Berners politely put Mrs. Blondelle in the left-hand corner, and then seated himself in the middle seat, between his wife and her guest.

In front of them, on the movable central seat, sat Mrs. Blondelle's child and nurse. Facing them on the front seat, with their backs to the horses, were the two negro servants, Mr. Berners' valet and Mrs. Berners' maid.

Though the morning was a very fine one for travelling, there were no other passengers inside, or out. Mr. Berners and his party had the whole coach to themselves, at least, at starting.

Sybil thought she had never seen her husband in gayer spirits. As the horses started and the coach rattled along over the stony streets of the city, Mr. Berners turned smilingly to Mrs. Blondelle, and said:

"I know of few pleasanter things in this pleasant world than a journey through our native State of Virginia, taken at this delightful season of the year; and of all routes I know of none affording such a variety of beautiful and sublime scenery as this we are now starting upon."

"How long will it take you to reach your beautiful home?" sweetly inquired Rosa Blondelle.

"We might reach it in two days, if we were to travel day and night; but we shall be four days on the road, as we propose to put up at some roadside inn or village each night," answered Lyon Berners.

Meanwhile the coach rattled out of the city and into the open country, where the landscape was fair, well-wooded, well-watered, but not striking.

"You must not judge the scenery of our State by this flat country around our seaport," said Mr. Berners to his guest, with the air of a man making an apology.

"Yet this is very pleasant to look upon," answered Rosa, sincerely.

"Yes, very pleasant, as you say; but you will use stronger language when you see our vast forests, our high mountains, and deep valleys," answered Lyon Berners with a smile.

Sybil did not join in the conversation. She had not spoken since she had unwillingly taken that corner seat. And worse than all, to her apprehension, neither her husband nor her guest had noticed her silence. They were apparently quite absorbed in each other.

Some hours of jolting over bad turnpike roads brought the coach to the interior of an old forest, where, at a wayside inn, the horses were changed, and the travellers dined. Here, on resuming their seats in the coach, they were joined by two other travellers, elderly country gentlemen, who took the two vacant places inside, and who would have made themselves very confidential with Mr. Berners on any subject within their knowledge, from crops to Congress, if he had not been too engaged with his fair guest to pay them much attention. Sybil continued silent, except when occasionally her husband would ask her if she was comfortable, or if he could do anything for her, when she would thank him and answer that she was quite comfortable; and that he could do nothing. And as far as bodily ease went, she spoke the truth. For the rest, Sybil could not then and there ask him to leave off devoting himself to their guest, and show her more attention.

A few more hours of more jolting over worse turnpike roads brought the coach to the foot of the Blue Ridge, and to the picturesque village of Underhill, where our party passed the night. Here, in the village inn, Sybil Berners, feeling that Rosa Blondelle, as her guest, was entitled to her courtesy, made an effort to forget the pain in her heart, the shadow on her mind, and to do the honors of the table with her usual affability and grace.

After supper, which was pleasantly prolonged, the travellers separated, and were shown to their several bed-chambers.

And now, after twelve hours, Sybil found herself once more alone with her husband. He had not perceived her silence and dejection during the journey, or if he had, he certainly had not ascribed it to the right cause. He was equally unconscious of having done a wrong, or inflicted a wound. And now his manner to his wife was as tender, loving, and devoted as it had ever been since their marriage. His very first words showed this. On entering the room and closing the door, he suddenly threw his arms around her, and clasped her to his bosom as a recovered treasure, exclaiming:

"Now, my darling, we are alone together once more, with no one to divide us."

"Thank Heaven!" breathed Sybil with all her heart; and her jealousy was lulled to rest again by the kisses that he pressed on her lips. She said to herself that all his devotion to Rosa Blondelle in the stage-coach was but the proper courtesy of a gentleman to a lady guest, who was, besides, a stranger in the country; and that she, his wife, ought to admire, rather than to blame him for it—ought to be pleased, rather than pained by it.

Very early the next morning the travellers arose, in order to take the earliest coach, which, having left Norfolk at sunset, would reach Underhill at sunrise.

Poor, ardent, impulsive Sybil! She had passed a very happy night; and this morning she met her guest with a gush of genuine affection, embracing and kissing her and her child, making them even more welcome than she had done before, and feeling that to-day she could not deal too kindly by Rosa, to atone for having yesterday thought so hardly of her.

Under these pleasant auspices the travellers sat down to an excellent breakfast.

But the warning horn blew, and they prepared to resume their journey.

On entering the coach, they found the other passengers, three in number, already on the back seat. But they were gentlemen, who voluntarily and promptly gave up their seats to the two ladies and their escort. The coach started.

Their route now lay through some of the wildest passes of the Blue Ridge. And here the enthusiasm of Rosa Blondelle burst forth. She said that she had seen grand mountains in Scotland, but nothing—no, nothing to equal these in grandeur and beauty!

And Lyon Berners smiled to hear her speak so, as one might smile at the extravagant delight of a child, for as a child this lovely stranger often seemed to him and to others. And she, with her sweet, blue eyes, smiled back to him.

And Sybil looked and listened, and felt again that strange wound deepening in her heart—that strange cloud darkening over her mind.



CHAPTER VIII.

BLACK HALL.

Seest thou our home? 'tis where the woods are waving In their dark richness to the autumn air; Where yon blue stream its rocky banks are laving, Leads down the hills a vein of light—'tis there.—HEMANS.

At the close of that second day, they stopped at a hamlet on the summit of the Blue Ridge, from which they could view five counties. At the little hotel they were entertained very much in the same manner as at the inn of Underhill. Again Sybil's unspoken and unsuspected jealousy was soothed by the caresses of her husband.

In the morning they resumed their journey in the early coach, that took them across the beautiful valley that lies between the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains. And again Lyon Berners' devotion to Rosa Blondelle deeply distressed Sybil. At nightfall they reached Staunton, where they slept.

On the morning of the fourth and last day of their journey, they took the cross-country coach and changed their route, which now led them towards the wildest, dreariest, and loneliest passes of the Alleghenies.

About mid-day the coach entered the dark defile known as the "Devils' Descent." And, in fact, it needed all the noon sunshine to light up the gloom of that fearful pass. Here the delight of the impressible young foreigner deepened into awe.

"I have never seen anything like this in the old country," she breathed, in a low, hushed tone.

And again Lyon Berners smiled most kindly and indulgently on her, and again Sybil Berners sickened at heart. Every time Lyon so smiled on Rosa, Sybil so sickened. She strove against this feeling, but she could not overcome it.

As the day declined and the coach went on, wilder, drearier, and lonelier became the road, until, at nightfall, it entered a pass so gloomy, so savage, so terrific in its aspect, that the young stranger involuntarily caught her breath and clung for protection to the arm of Lyon Berners.

"I have never dreamed of a place like this," she gasped.

"You think," he said indulgently, "that if the other pass was called the 'Devil's Descent,' this should be the 'Gates of Hell.' Yet to us, it is the 'Gates of Heaven;' since it is the entrance to our Valley Home."

And this affectionate mention of their mutual home almost consoled the wife for the smile he bestowed on their beautiful guest while speaking.

Then all the women except Sybil held their breath in awe.

It was indeed an awful pass! a road roughly hewn through the bottom of a deep, narrow, tortuous cleft in the mountains where, at some remote period, by some tremendous convulsions of nature, the solid rocks had been rent apart, leaving the ragged edges of the wound hanging at a dizzy height between heaven and earth! The dark iron-gray precipices that towered on each side were clothed in every cleft, from base to summit, with clumps of dark stunted evergreens as sombre as themselves. So tortuous, besides, was the pass, that the travellers could see but a few yards before them at any time. There was but one cheering sight in earth or sky, and that was the young crescent moon straight before them in the west, and shining down in tender light upon the rudest precipice of all.

"It does remind one of Dante's descriptions of the 'Entrance into the Infernal Regions,' does it not?" inquired Lyon Berners.

"All except the little moon! Without that, its gloom would be perfectly horrible! and it is horrible enough now," answered Rosa with a shudder.

"But I love it! Even its gloom and horror have a weird fascination for me. It is my abode. I only seem to live my own life in my own Black Valley," said Sybil, in a low, deep voice that thrilled with emotion.

They were suddenly silenced, for they were at the sharpest, steepest, most difficult and dangerous turn in that most dangerous pass; and to go down with any chance of safety required the utmost care and skill on the part of the coachman, whose anxiety was shared by all within the coach. Each passenger clung for support to what was nearest at hand, and might reasonably have expected every instant to be dashed to pieces on the rocks by the coach pitching over the horses' heads, as it tossed and tumbled and thundered down the falling road, more like a descending avalanche than a well-conducted four-wheeled vehicle.

Our travellers only let go their holdings and loosed their tongues again at the foot of the precipice.

"That was—that was—Oh, there is no word to express what it was. It was more than terrible! more than awful! And it is just a miracle that we have escaped with our lives!" gasped Rosa Blondelle, aghast with horror.

"There has never yet been an accident on this road," observed Lyon Berners, soothingly.

"Then there is a miracle performed every time a vehicle passes down it," replied Rosa, with a shudder.

"But look now, there is a very fine scene," said Mr. Berners, pointing through the window as the coach rolled on. Sybil was already gazing through the right-hand window, and so Rosa stretched her fair neck to look from the left-hand one.

Yes, it was a fine scene. The young crescent moon with its tender beam had gone down; but the great stars were out in all their glory, and by their shining the travellers saw before them a beautiful little river, whose rippling surface reflected in fitful glimmers the cheerful lights of a village on its opposite bank.

"This is the Black River. It rises in those distant mountains, which are called the Black Rocks, and which shut in our Black Valley. The village here is called Blackville," explained Lyon Berners.

"What a deal of blackness!" replied Rosa Blondelle.

"If you think so, I must tell you in the first place that we are not responsible for having named these places; and in the second, that the names are really appropriate. The stupendous height and dark iron-gray hue of the rocks that overshadow and darken the valley and the river, and also the situation of the village at the entrance of the dark valley, justify these names. And even if they did not, still we are not so irreverent as to interfere with the arrangements of those who have gone before us," laughed Lyon Berners.

And as he spoke the stage-coach reached the banks of the river, and drew up before the little ferry-house. Here the travellers alighted, and had their baggage taken off. And the coach, waiting only long enough to change horses and to pick up passengers, all of whom, both man and beast, had been brought over from the village by the ferry-boat, went on its way, which lay along the east bank of the river.

Mr. Berners had his luggage and that of his party put upon the ferry-boat, and then he led the ladies on board. He saw them comfortably seated, and the nurse and child in a safe place, and then he turned to the aged ferry-man with hearty good will, and inquired:

"Well, old Charon! all right with you?"

"Yes, sir, thank Heaven!" replied the old man, whose occupation, combined with his great age and flowing gray locks, yet stalworth form and unbroken strength, had conferred upon him the name of his infernal predecessor—the navigator of the River Styx.

"All right in the village, and in the valley?" further inquired Mr. Berners.

"All right in the willage, sir. And Joe, who has just arrove at the tavern, do report all right in the walley," was the satisfactory answer of the ferry-man.

"Oh! then our carriage is waiting for us there?"

"Yes, sir, which it arrove just about twenty minutes ago, punk-too-well to time!" replied the old man.

The passage across the Black River is very short, and just as the ferry-man spoke, the boat touched the wharf immediately under the lighted windows of the hotel, before the doors of which they saw the Black Hall carriage and horses standing.

Mr. Berners assisted the ladies of his party to land, and proposed that they should stop at the hotel and take supper before going on to Black Hall.

"Oh, no! please don't, on any account! I feel sure that Miss Tabby has laid out all her talent on the supper that is awaiting us at home. And she would weep with disappointment and mortification if we should stop to supper here," eagerly objected Sybil.

"Miss Tabby is our housekeeper; the best creature, but the greatest whimperer in existence. She is, in turn, Sybil's tyrant and Sybil's slave; for she is both despotic and devoted, and scolds and pets her alternately and unreasonably as a foolish mother does an only child," explained Mr. Berners, turning to Mrs. Blondelle.

"And her lady?" inquired Rosa, with an admiring glance toward Mrs. Berners.

"Oh! Sybil turns the tables, you may be sure, and indulges or rebukes her housekeeper as the occasion may demand," laughed Lyon.

"Come here, Joe!" called Mrs. Berners to her coachman, who was seen coming out of the tap-room.

"Bress my two eyes, Miss Sybil! how glad dey is to see you, and you too, Marse Lyon!" exclaimed a very black, short, squarely built, good-humored looking negro coachman, as he came and bowed to his master and mistress.

"Joe! you have been at your old tricks again. Joe! why can't you let bar-rooms alone? Joe! where do you expect to go when you die?" solemnly inquired Sybil, shaking her finger at the delinquent.

"I do 'spect to go straight to de debbil, miss, for sure! Dat's de reason why I wants to take a drap of comfort in dis worl', 'cause I nebber shall get none dere. But bress my two eyes, miss, how glad dey is to look on your putty face again."

"My 'putty' face? I want to know if that's a compliment? But, Joe, what has Miss Tabby got for supper?"

"Lor bress your putty little mouf, Miss Sybil; it's easier to tell you what she hasn't got," exclaimed Joe, stretching his eyes. "Why, Miss Sybil, there an't a man nor a maid about the house, what ha'n't been on their feet all dis day a getting up of that there supper," he added.

"There! I told you so!" said Sybil, turning to her husband.

"Then let's go on and eat it, my love. We can leave our two servants here to follow in the wagon with the baggage," said Lyon Berners, leading his wife and his guest to the carriage, and placing them inside, with the child and nurse, while he himself mounted to the box beside the coachman.

"Oh! I am very sorry Mr. Berners has been crowded out," regretfully exclaimed Rosa Blondelle, looking after him in surprise as he climbed to his roost.

"Oh, he has not been crowded out! He has gone up there to drive; for the road is not very safe at night, and our coachman is rather too much exhilarated to be trusted," answered Sybil, touching very tenderly upon the weakness of her old servant.

Their road lay along the bank of the river up the valley, between the two high mountain ridges; but it was so dark that nothing but these grander features of the landscape could be discerned.

As the carriage rolled slowly and carefully along this rough road, the music of distant waters fell upon the listening ear, and from the faintest hum that could hardly be heard, it gradually swelled into a deafening roar that filled the valley.

"What is that?" fearfully inquired Rosa.

"What is what?" echoed Sybil.

"That horrid noise!"

"Oh! that is the Black Torrent, the head of our Black River," answered Sybil in a low, pleased tone; for the sound of her native waters, however dreadful it might be to strange ears, was delightful to hers.

"Oh! more blackness!" shivered Rosa.

"But it is a beautiful cascade! All beautiful things are not necessarily light, you know."

"No, indeed," answered Rosa, "for the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life is very dark." And she raised and pressed the hand of her hostess, to give point to her words.

Sybil did not like the implied flattery, delicately as it was conveyed. She drew her hand away; and then, to heal the little hurt she might have made in doing so, she opened the window and said, pleasantly:

"Look, Mrs. Blondelle! You see the lights of our home now."

Rosa leaned across Sybil to look in the direction indicated, and she saw scattered lights that seemed to be set in the side of the mountain. She saw no house, and she said so.

"That is because the house is built of the very same dark iron-gray rocks that form the mountain; and being immediately at the foot of the mountain, and closely surrounded with trees, can not at night be distinguished from the mountain itself."

Here the carriage road curved around an expansion of the river that might have been taken either for a very small lake, or a very large pond. And about midway of this curve, or semi-circle, the carriage drew up.

On the left-hand was dimly seen the lake; on the right-hand the gate letting into the elm-tree avenue that led straight up to the house.

"That is the Black Pond, and there is Black Hall. More 'blackness,' Mrs. Blondelle," smiled Sybil, who was so delighted to get home that she forgot her jealousy.

The carriage waited only until the gates could be opened by the slow old porter, whom Sybil laughingly greeted as "Cerberus," although the name given him in baptism was that of the keeper of the keys of heaven, and not that of the guardian of the entrance to the other place.

"Cerberus," or rather Peter, warmly welcomed his young mistress back, and widely stretched the gates for her carriage to pass.

As the carriage rolled easily along the avenue, now thickly carpeted with forest leaves, and as it approached the house, the fine old building, with its many gable ends and curiously twisted chimneys, its steep roofs and latticed windows—all monuments of the old colonial days—came more and more distinctly into view from its background of mountains. Lights were gleaming from upper and lower and all sorts of windows, and the whole aspect of the grand old hospitable mansion proclaimed, "WELCOME."



CHAPTER IX.

THE GUEST-CHAMBERS.

Deserted rooms of luxury and state, Which old magnificence had rudely furnished With pictures, cabinets of ancient date, And carvings, gilt and burnished,—HOOD.

The carriage drew up at the foot of a flight of stone steps, leading to the front entrance of the house. The double oak doors stood wide open, showing the lighted hall and a group of people waiting.

Sybil looked eagerly from the carriage window.

"I do declare," she exclaimed, "if there is not, not only Miss Tabby, but Miss Libby and Mrs. Winterose besides; Mrs. Winterose," she explained, turning to her guest, "is the widow of our late land steward. She is also my foster-mother, and the mother of the two maiden ladies, Miss Tabby, who is our housekeeper, and Miss Libby, who lives with the widowed parent at home. They have come to welcome us back. Heaven bless them!"

As Sybil spoke, Mr. Berners dropped down from his perch on the coachman's box, and opened the carriage door.

He assisted first his wife, and then their guest, to alight. And then he took the sleeping child from the nurse's arms, while she herself got out.

"You know the way, dearest Sybil! Run on before, and I will take charge of our fair friend," said Mr. Berners, as he gave his arm to Mrs. Blondelle to lead her up the steps.

But Sybil had not waited for this permission. Too eager to meet the dear old friends of her childhood to care for any one else just then, or even to feel a twinge of jealousy at the words and actions of her husband, she flew past him up the stairs and into the arms of her foster-mother, who folded the beautiful, impetuous creature to her bosom, and welcomed her home with heartfelt emotion.

Miss Tabby and Miss Libby next took their turns to be embraced and kissed.

And then the old servants crowded around to welcome their beloved young mistress; to every one of them she gave a cordial grasp of her hand, and loving words.

"It is very delightful," she said, with tears of joy in her eyes, "it is very, very delightful to be so warmly welcomed home."

"Everything as well as everybody welcomes you home, Miss Sybil! Even the Black Torrent! I never heard the cascade sing so loud and merry as it does to-night!" said Old Abe, or Father Abraham, as he was called, for being a full centenarian, and the oldest negro, by twenty years, of any on the estate.

"Thank you, dear old Uncle Abe! I know you all welcome me home! And I love to think that my torrent does too! And now, Miss Tabby, you got the letter I wrote from Underhill, asking you to have the spare rooms prepared for the visitors we were to bring with us?" inquired Sybil, turning to her housekeeper.

"Yes, ma'am, and your orders is obeyed, and the rooms is all ready, as well as yourn and Mr. Berners', even to the kindling of the fires, which has been burning in the chimneys to air them rooms all this blessed day," answered Miss Tabby.

"That is right, and I thank you; and now here comes our visitor," said Sybil, as her guest approached leaning on her husband's arm. They had certainly lingered a little on the way; but Sybil was too happy to notice that circumstance now. The jealous wife was for the time subdued within her, and all the hospitable hostess was in the ascendant.

"You are welcome to Black Hall, my dear Mrs. Blondelle," she said, advancing to receive her guest. "And now, will you walk into our sitting parlor and rest awhile before taking off your wraps; or shall I show you at once to your rooms, which are quite ready for you?"

"At once to my rooms, if you please, Mrs. Berners; for, you see, my poor little Cromartie is already fast asleep."

"Come, then; you will not have far to go. It is on this floor," said Sybil, with a smile, as she led the way down the wide hall, past the great staircase, and then turned to the right and went down a long passage, until she came to a door, which she opened.

"Here is your bed-chamber," said Sybil, inviting her guest to enter a large and richly furnished room; "and beyond this, and connected with it, is another and a smaller apartment, which is properly the dressing-room, but which I have had fitted up as a nursery for your child and his nurse."

"Many thanks," replied Rosa Blondelle, as she followed her hostess into the room, and glanced around with the natural curiosity we all feel in entering a strange place.

The room was very spacious, and had many doors and windows. Its furniture was all green, which would have seemed rather gloomy, but for the bright wood fire on the hearth, that lighted up all the scene with cheerfulness.

Sybil drew an easy-chair to the chimney corner, and invited her guest to sit down.

But Rosa was too curious about her surroundings to yield herself immediately to rest.

"What an interesting old place!" she said, walking about the chamber and examining every thing.

Meanwhile the nurse-maid, more practical than her mistress, had found the door of the adjoining nursery and passed into it to put her infant charge to bed.

"Oh!" exclaimed Rosa, who had drawn aside one of the green moreen window curtains and was looking out—"Oh! what a wild, beautiful place! But these windows open right upon the grounds, and there are no outside shutters! Is there no danger?"

"No danger whatever, my dear Mrs. Blondelle. These windows open at the back of the house, upon the grounds, which run quite back to the foot of the mountain. These grounds are very private, being quite inaccessible, except through the front grounds of the house," said Sybil, soothingly.

"But oh!" whispered Mrs. Blondelle, nowise tranquilized by the answer of her hostess—"Oh! what are those white things that I see standing among the bushes at the foot of the mountain? They look like—tombstones!" she added, with a shudder.

"They are tombstones," replied Sybil in a low, grave voice; "that is our family burial-ground, and all the Berners, for seven generations, lie buried there."

"Oh, good gracious!" gasped Rosa Blondelle, dropping the curtain and turning away.

"Don't be alarmed," smiled Sybil. "The place is much farther off than it seems. And now, my dear Mrs. Blondelle, let me make you acquainted with the bearings of this green bedroom, and then you will like it better. You see it is in the right wing of the house, and that accounts for its having windows on three sides, back, front, and end, and doors that connect with the house and doors that lead to the grounds. This door," she said, opening one on the left-hand side of the fireplace—"this door leads up this little narrow staircase directly into my chamber, which is immediately above this, as my dressing-room is immediately above your nursery. So, my dear, if ever you should feel nervous or alarmed, all you have to do is to open this little door, and run up these stairs and knock loudly at the upper door, which is near the head of my bed. I shall hear you, and fly to your assistance."

"Yes," laughed Rosa. "But suppose some robber were to get into these windows, and be right upon me before I could run, what should I do then?"

"Call for assistance, and Mr. Berners and myself will run down to your rescue. But in order to make that practicable, you must always leave that lower stair door unfastened; and you may do it with perfect safety, as it leads nowhere but into my bedroom."

"I will remember always to leave it unfastened," replied Rosa.

"But, my dear, I assure you there is not the least shadow of a shade of danger. Our faithful negroes are all around us on the outside, and our faithful dumb guardians sleep on the mats in the large hall and the smaller passages. However, if you still feel nervous, I will have one of the maids sleep in your room, and one of the men sleep in the passage outside," said Sybil.

"Oh, no, not for the world would I disturb the arrangements of the family. I am not at all nervous now," said Rosa Blondelle.

"Then, dear, get ready for supper; for it has been ready for us for an hour past, and I am sure you must need it. I will, with your permission, go up to my own room by these stairs; and when I have changed my dress, I will come down the same way and take you in to supper," said Sybil, as, with a smile and a bow, she opened the door and slipped away up to her own room.

Rosa Blondelle passed into the little adjoining nursery, to see after her child.

The room, small as it was, had two windows, one west and one south, and a little fireplace north. The east side was only broken by the door that communicated with the bedroom. There were green curtains to the two windows, green carpet on the floor, and green covers to the rocking-chair and the child's chairs, which were the only ones in the room. There was a cot-bed for the nurse and a crib for the child. A well-supplied wash-stand completed the furniture. The child lay sleeping soundly in his crib, and the nurse sat by him, occupying herself with some white embroidery that she habitually carried in her pocket, to fill up spare moments profitably.

"Crow is quite well, Janet?" inquired the young mother, approaching and looking at her rosy boy.

"Yes, me leddy, and sleeping like an angel," answered the woman.

"Those are very comfortable quarters, Janet."

"Yes, me leddy, though the roaring of yon Black Torrent, as they ca' it, gars me grew. I wonder does it always roar sae loud."

"Oh no, Janet. Mr. Berners says that it only sounds so when very much swollen by the rains. And Mr. Berners should know."

"Aye, ma'am, and sae he suld! And a very fine gentleman is the laird!"

"He is not a laird, Janet! There are no lairds in America."

"And what will he be then, ma'am?"

"Simply a gentleman—Mr. Berners."

"It is a pity he is na a laird, ma'am, and a duke to the back of that! a princely gentleman he is, me leddy."

"I quite agree with you, Janet. Well, leave your charge for a moment, and come and arrange my hair for me. Unluckily I can not change my dress, for my luggage was left behind at Blackville, and I don't suppose it has arrived here yet," said Rosa Blondelle, as she returned to her room attended by her maid. But there an agreeable surprise met her. She found her trunks set in order, ready for her.

"I declare, there they are! And I suppose the servants who brought them, finding the door wide open and no one in the room, just put them in here and retired. Janet, open that trunk and get out my black velvet, and point lace set. I must not wear anything very light and gay on this first evening, after a fatiguing journey, when we all feel so tired as to be fit for nothing but bed," said Rosa Blondelle, throwing herself languidly into the green-covered easy-chair before the dressing-table.

"And, 'deed, me leddy, there's nae dress ye look sae weell in as that bonny black velvet," said the maid.

Rosa knew this well, and for this reason, perhaps, selected the dress.

The maid quickly and skilfully arranged her mistress's hair in its natural golden ringlets, that needed no ornament whatever. And when her toilet was complete, Rosa Blondelle's fair beauty was even more resplendent than usual, from its contrast with the rich blackness of her dress.

"'A star upon the brow of night!'" quoted Sybil, as she entered the room and stood for a moment in involuntary admiration. Then, with a smile, she drew the arm of her guest within her own and led her off to the supper-table, where they were joined by Mr. Berners.

It was a warm wainscotted little room, with crimson carpet and crimson curtains, a good open fire of hickory wood, and a small, but luxuriously spread supper-table.

Mr. Berners led their guest to her place at the board, and left his wife to follow. These courtesies were no doubt due the visitor, yet they made the wife's heart ache. She hated to miss the attentions her husband had always hitherto bestowed on her alone; and she hated more to see them lavished on another, and that other a beautiful, fascinating, and, as she half suspected, most dangerous woman. It was in vain she said to herself that these attentions were no more than any gentleman should show to the invited visitor of his wife. She could not argue away her heartache. She could not endure to see her husband touch the beauty's hand. It drove her almost out of her self-possession to see their eyes meet in that provoking mutual smile. Oh! how she repented ever having invited this fatal beauty to her house! And yet she pitied the friendless stranger too, and she struggled bravely against those feelings of jealousy and hatred that were creeping into her heart. And, in fact, from this time the whole inner life of Sybil Berners became one hard struggle between her passions and her reason. And this struggle soon manifested itself in a series of inconsistencies of conduct that were perfectly incomprehensible to both Lyon Berners and Rosa Blondelle.

For instance, on this first night at home, while they sat at the supper-table. Sybil was silent, abstracted, and depressed. Her companions mentally ascribed her condition to fatigue; but Sybil then scarcely knew what fatigue meant. After supper she aroused herself by an effort, and offered to attend Mrs. Blondelle back again to that lady's chamber; and when they got there, even lingered a little while, and very kindly repeated her request that if Rosa should be frightened in the night, she should run up the communicating stairs and rap at Sybil's bedroom door for assistance. And then Sybil bade her visitor good-night, and vanished up the stairs.

The travellers were all very tired, and so, notwithstanding Rosa's fears and Sybil's jealousy, they were all soon fast asleep.



CHAPTER X.

THE JEALOUS BRIDE.

Yea, she was jealous, though she did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.—BYRON.

Rosa was the last to wake up in the morning. The nurse had already dressed the child and taken him from the room; so Rosa rang her bell to bring the truants back.

Janet came alone.

"Where is little Crow?" inquired Crow's mamma.

"In the breakfast-room, me leddy, on the laird's knee," answered the girl.

"I tell you there are no lairds in America, Janet!" said the lady, impatiently.

"Well, on the gentleman's knee, ma'am."

"Very well, now come help me to dress."

Janet hastened to obey, and in half an hour Rosa Blondelle issued from her chamber, looking if possible even more beautiful than she had looked on the previous evening; for she wore an elegant morning robe of white cashmere, embroidered down the front and around the bodice, sleeves, and skirt with a border of blue bells, and she had her splendid hair dressed in the simple natural ringlets that were the most becoming to her.

Janet walked before her mistress, to show the way. Far up the great hall, she opened a door on the left-hand side, admitting the lady to a delightful front room, whose front windows looked out upon the lake, the valley, and the opposite range of mountains.

It was a golden October morning, and from a cloudless deep-blue sky the sun shone down in dazzling splendor upon the valley, kindling up into a conflagration of living light all the variegated foliage of the trees, upon the mountain sides and the river's banks, where the glowing crimson of the oak and the flaming orange of the elm mingled with the royal purple of the dogwood and the deep green of the cedar. And all this gorgeousness of coloring was reflected in the lake, whose waters seemed dyed with all the prismatic hues of the rainbow.

"'Black Valley,' indeed!" said Rosa Blondelle, with a smile, as she entered the breakfast-room and glanced through the windows upon the magnificent scene; "'Black Valley,' call you this? I should rather call it 'Bright Valley.' Oh, what a glorious day and oh, what a glorious scene! Good-morning, Mrs. Berners. Good-morning, Mr. Berners. Little Crow, this kind gentleman is spoiling you," she said, as she advanced with smiling eyes and outstretched hands to greet her host and hostess, who had risen from their chairs to meet her.

They both received her very kindly, even affectionately, and as they had waited only for her presence to have breakfast, Sybil now rang and ordered it to be brought in.

Sybil's own little "high chair" had been rummaged out from its corner in the lumber-room and dusted, and brought in for the use of the baby-boy; who, in honor of his mother, was permitted to sit up to the table with the grown people.

"But why, I repeat, should you call this glorious vale the 'Black Valley'?" inquired Rosa, as they all gathered around the board.

"It was black enough last night, was it not?" asked Mr. Berners, with a smile.

"Oh, it was black everywhere last night; but no blacker here than elsewhere, so I don't see the justice of calling this the Black Valley. I should call it rather the 'Valley of the Sun.'"

"Would not the 'Valley of the Pyrotechnics' do as well?" inquired Lyon Berners, with dry humor.

"I think it would," replied Rosa, quite seriously, "for certainly this morning, with this glorious sunshine and these glowing, sparkling woods and waters, the place is a perfect spectacle of fire-works!"

"You view the scenery at its best and brightest. It is never so beautiful and brilliant as on a clear sunny autumn noon-day. At all other seasons, and at all other hours, it is gloomy enough. In a very few hours from this, when the sun gets behind the mountain, it will be quite black enough to justify its name," said Mr. Berners very gravely.

The conversation had been carried on between Mr Berners and Mrs. Blondelle exclusively. Sybil had not volunteered a word; and it happened also that neither of her companions had addressed a word to her. She felt as if she were dropped out of their talk, and though bodily present, dropped out of their company as well. She felt that this was very hard; and once more she experienced the wild and vain regret that she had ever invited this too-alluring stranger to become an inmate of her house.

Before now, when they had been together, Lyon Berners had been accustomed to think of, smile on, talk to, only her, his wife! Now his thoughts, smiles, conversation were all divided with another!—Oh no! Oh no! not divided, but almost entirely absorbed by that other! At least so suspected the jealous wife.

"Is it possible, oh! is it possible that he loves me less than formerly? that he loves me not at all? that he loves this stranger?" thought Sybil, as she watched her husband and her friend, entirely taken up with each other, and entirely oblivious of her! And at this thought a sensation of sickness and faintness came over her, and she saved herself from falling, only by a great effort of self-command. They, talking to each other, smiling at each other, enjoying each other's exclusive attention, did not observe her emotion, although almost any casual spectator must have seen it in the deadly pallor of her face.

In all this there was little to arouse her jealousy; and perhaps there was nothing at all. Her heart pang may have come of a false fear, or a true one; who could then tell?

For my own part, looking towards this situation of affairs through the light of after knowledge, I think that her fears were, even then, well-founded; that even then it was a true instinct which warned her that her adored husband, he to whom her whole heart, soul, and spirit were entirely given, he for whom only she "lived and moved and had her being," he was becoming fascinated, for the time being at least, by this beautiful stranger, who was evidently also flattered by his attentions. And this in the very honeymoon of the bride to whom he owed so much!

And yet indeed, I say, still speaking in the light of after knowledge, that at this time he was equally unconscious of his wife's jealousy, or of any wrong-doing on his own part, calculated to arouse it. Had Lyon Berners suspected that his attentions to their fair guest gave such deep pain to his high-spirited wife, he would at least have modified them to retain her confidence. But he suspected nothing. Sybil revealed nothing; her pride was even greater than her jealousy; for this last daughter of the House of Berners inherited all the pride of all her line. At this time, this pride quite enabled her to keep her pain to herself.

At length the severe ordeal was, for the moment, over. She perceived that her companions had finished breakfast, and so she arose from the table, leaving her example to be followed by them.

"Let me lead you to our pleasant morning parlor. It is just across the hall, and commands the same view of the lake and mountains that this room does—from the front windows I mean; but from the end windows you get a view up the valley, and may catch glimpses of the Black Torrent as it rushes roaring down the side of the mountain," said Mr. Berners, as he offered his hand to Mrs. Blondelle and led her from the breakfast parlor.

Sybil looked after them with pallid cheeks and darkening brows; then she rushed up into her own chamber, locked her door, threw herself upon her bed and gave way to a storm of sobs and tears. While she was still weeping vehemently, there came a knock at the door. She lifted up her head and listened; controlling her voice as well as she could, she inquired:

"Who is there, and what is wanted?"

"It is I, my dear, and I want to come in," answered the voice of her husband.

"I have not even the privilege of shutting myself up to weep alone! for I belong to one who can invade my privacy or command my presence at his pleasure!" exclaimed Sybil in bitterness of spirit; and yet bitterness that was mingled with a strange, deep sweetness too! for she loved to feel that she did belong to Lyon Berners; that he had the privilege of invading her privacy, or commanding her presence at his pleasure. And ah! that was a happiness Rosa Blondelle would not share!

"Well, well, my darling! are you going to let me in?" inquired Mr. Berners, after a moment of patient waiting.

"Yes, in an instant dear!" exclaimed Sybil, hastily wiping her eyes and trying to efface all signs of weeping from her countenance.

Then she opened the door.

Her husband entered, closed the door, and then turned around with some light, gay word; but at the sight of his wife's pale and agitated face, he started in surprise and distress, exclaiming:

"Why, Sybil! Why, my darling! What on earth is the matter? What has happened?"

At the sound of his anxious voice, at the sight of his troubled face, Sybil turned aside, sank upon the corner of the sofa, dropped her head upon its cushions, and yielded to a tempest of sobs and tears.

He hurried to her side, sat down and drew her head upon his bosom, and in much alarm exclaimed again:

"In the name of Heaven, Sybil! what is all this about? What has happened to distress you so deeply? Have you heard any bad news?" he inquired as he caressed and tried to soothe her.

She did not repel his caresses; for, jealous as she was, she felt no anger towards him then. She laid her head upon his bosom, and sobbed aloud.

"What bad news have you heard, dear Sybil?" repeated Mr. Berners.

"Oh, none at all! What bad news could I hear to make me weep? I do not care as much as that for anything on earth, or anybody except you!" she answered, lifting her head from his bosom as she spoke, and then dropping it again when she had finished.

"Then what is it that troubles you, my own dear wife? What cause can you have for weeping?" he inquired, tenderly caressing the beautiful, wayward creature.

She lifted her head, and smiled through her tears as she answered:

"None at all, I believe. What does Kotzebue say? 'To laugh or cry without a reason, is one of the few privileges women have.' I have no good reason to weep, dear Lyon! I know that I have not. But I am nervous and hysterical, I believe," she added; for, as before, his tender caresses dispelled her jealousy and restored her trust. With her head resting on his bosom; with his arms around her; with his eyes smiling down upon hers, she could not look in his face and retain her jealous doubts.

"I have no reason in the world for weeping. I am just a nervous, hysterical woman—like the rest! It is no wonder men, who see the weakness of our sex, refuse to trust us with any power," she added, with a light laugh.

"But I utterly deny this alleged 'weakness of your sex.' You bewray yourself and sex by repeating the slander, though even in jest, as I see you are. You are not weak, my Sybil. Nor do you weep without a cause. You have some good and sufficient reason for your tears."

"Indeed, no; I have none. I am only nervous and hysterical, and thoroughly ashamed of myself for being so," she answered, very sincerely, for she was really thoroughly ashamed of her late jealousy, and anxious to conceal it from her husband.

He looked at her so inquisitively, not to say so incredulously, that she hastened to add;

"This is really nothing but nervous irritability, dear Lyon. Do not distress yourself about my moods."

"But I must, my darling. Whether their cause is mental or physical, real or imaginary, I must trouble myself about your tears," answered Lyon Berners, with grave tenderness.

"Then let it be about my next ones; not these that are past and gone. And now to a pleasant topic. The ball that we are expected to give."

"Yes, dear, that is your affair. But I am ready to give you any assistance in my power. Your cards, I believe, are all printed?"

"Yes; that was a happy idea to get the cards printed while we stopped in New York."

"Now they only need filling up with names and dates."

"And the addition of one little word, Lyon."

"Well, and what is that?"

"Masks."

"MASKS!" echoed Mr. Berners, in surprise.

"MASKS," reiterated Mrs. Berners, with a smile.

"Why, my dear Sybil, what on earth do you mean?"

"Why, that our party shall be a masked, fancy-dress ball. That will be something new in this old-fashioned neighborhood."

"Yes, and something startling to our old-fashioned neighbors," said Mr. Berners, with a dubious shake of his head.

"So much the better. They need startling, and I intend to startle them."

"As you please, my dear, wayward Sybil. But when do you propose this affair to come off?"

"On All-Hallow Eve."

"Good. All-Hallow Eve is the proper sort of an eldritch night for such a piece of diablerie as a mask ball to be held," laughed Mr. Berners.

"But now, seriously, Lyon; do you really dislike or disapprove this plan? If you do I will willingly modify it according to your judgment; or even, if you wish it, I will willingly drop it altogether," she said, very earnestly.

"My dear impetuous Sybil, you should make no such sacrifices, even if I did dislike or disapprove your plan; but I do neither. I dare say I shall enjoy the masquerade as much as any one; and that it will be very popular and quite a success. But now, dear Sybil, let me hear what fantastic shape you will assume at this witches' dance?"

"I will tell you, Lyon; but mind, you must keep the secret."

"Oh! inviolably," said Mr. Berners, with a laugh.

"Oh! I mean only that you must not speak of it outside the family, because, you see, it is such a perfectly original character that if it was known it would be taken by half a dozen people at least."

"I will never breathe its name," laughed Lyon.

"Then the character I shall take is—"

"What?"

"Fire!"

"Fire?"

"Fire."

"Ha! ha! ha! it will suit you admirably, my little Berners of the Burning Heart. But how on earth will you contrive to costume and impersonate the consuming element?"

"It would take me a week to tell you, and then you would not understand. But you shall see."

"I hope you will not set all your company in a flame; that is all, my dear."

"But I shall try to do so. And now, dear Lyon, if you wish to help me, sit down at my writing-table there, and fill out and direct the invitations, you will find the visiting list, printed cards, and blank envelopes all in a parcel in the desk."

"But is it not early to send them?" inquired Mr. Berners, as he seated himself at the table.

"No; not for a mask ball. This is the tenth. The ball is to come off on the thirty-first. If the cards are sent to-day, our friends will have just three weeks to get ready, which will not be too long to select their characters and contrive their costumes."

"I suppose you know best, my dear," said Mr. Berners, as he referred to the visiting list and began to prepare for his task.

Sybil went to her dressing-glass and began to arrange her somewhat disordered hair. While she stood there, she suddenly inquired:

"Where did you leave Mrs. Blondelle?"

"I did not leave her anywhere. She left me. She excused herself, and went—to her room, I suppose."

"Ah!" sighed Sybil. She did not like this answer. She was sorry to know that her husband had remained with the beauty until the beauty had left him. She tortured herself with the thought that, if Mrs. Blondelle had remained in the morning room, Mr. Berners would have been there at her side.

So morbid was now the condition of Sybil that a word was enough to arouse her jealousy, a caress sufficient to allay it. She would not leave Lyon to himself, she thought. He should know the difference between his wife and his guest in that particular. So the guest, being now in her own room, where her hostess heartily wished she might spend the greater portion of the day, Sybil felt free from the pressing duties of hospitality, at least for the time being; and so she drew a chair to the corner of the same table occupied by her husband, and she began to help him in his task by directing the envelopes, while he filled out the cards. Thus sitting together, working in unison, and conversing occasionally, they passed the morning—a happier morning than Sybil had seen for several days.

But of course they met their guest again at dinner, where Rosa Blondelle was as fascinating and Lyon Berners as much fascinated as before, and where Sybil's mental malady returned in full force.

Oh, these transient fascinations, what eternal miseries they sometimes bring!

But a greater trial awaited the jealous wife in the evening, when they were all gathered in the drawing-room, and Rosa Blondelle, beautifully dressed, seated herself at the grand piano, and began to sing and play some of the impassioned songs from the Italian operas; and Lyon Berners, a very great enthusiast in music, hung over the siren, doubly entranced by her beauty and her voice. Sybil, too, stood with the little group at the piano; but she stood back in the shade, where the expression of her agonized face could not be seen by the other two, even if they had been at leisure to observe her. She was suffering the fiercest tortures of jealousy.

Sybil's education had been neglected, as I have told you. She had a fine contralto voice and a perfect ear, but these were both uncultivated; and so she could only sing and play the simplest ballads in the language. She had often regretted her want of power to please the fastidious musical taste of her husband; but never so bitterly as now, when she saw that power in the possession of another, and that other a beauty, a rival, and an inmate of her house. Oh, how deeply she now deplored her short-sightedness in bringing this siren to her home!

At the most impassioned, most expressive passages of the music, Rosa Blondelle would lift her eloquent blue eyes to those of Lyon Berners, who responded to their language.

And Sybil stood in the shadow near them, with pallid cheeks, compressed lips, and glittering eyes—mute, still, full of repressed anguish and restrained fury.

Ah, Rosa Blondelle, take heed! Better that you should come between the lioness and her young than between Sybil Berners and her love!

Yet again, on this evening, this jealous wife, this strange young creature, so full of contradictions and inconsistencies; so strong, yet so weak; so confiding, yet so suspicious; so magnanimous, yet so vindictive; once again, I say, successfully exerted her wonderful powers of self-control, and endured the ordeal of that evening in silence, and at its close bade her guest good-night without betraying the anguish of her heart.

When she found herself alone with her husband in their chamber, her fortitude nearly forsook her, especially as he himself immediately opened the subject of their beautiful guest.

"She is perfectly charming," said Mr. Berners. "Every day develops some new gift or grace of hers! My dear Sybil, you never did a better deed than in asking this lovely lady to our house. She will be an invaluable acquisition to our lonely fireside this winter."

"You did not use to think our fireside was lonely! You used to be very jealous of our domestic privacy!" Sybil thought to herself; but she gave no expression to this thought. On the contrary, controlling herself, and steadying her voice with an effort, she said smilingly:

"If you had met this 'lovely lady' before you married me, and had found her also free, you would have made her your wife."

"I! No, indeed!" impulsively and most sincerely answered Lyon Berners, as he raised his eyes in astonishment to the face of Sybil. But he could see nothing there. Her face was in deep shadow, where she purposely kept it to conceal its pallor and its tremor.

"But why, if you had met her before you married me, and found her free, why should you not have made her your wife?" persisted Sybil.

"'Why?'—what a question! Because, in the first place dear Sybil, I loved you, you only, long before I ever married you!" said Lyon Berners in increasing surprise.

"But—if you had met her before you had ever seen me, you would have loved and married her."

"No! On my honor, Sybil!"

"Yet you admire her so much!"

"Dear Sybil! I admire all things beautiful in nature and art, but I don't want to marry all!"

"And are you sure that this beautiful Rosa Blondelle would not make you a more suitable companion than I do?" she inquired.

His whole manner now changed. Turning towards her, he took both her hands in his own, and looking gravely and sweetly in her face, he answered:

"My wife! such questions between you and me ought never to arise, even in jest. I hold the marriage relation always too sacred for such trifling! And our relations towards each other seem to me dearer, sweeter, more sacred even, than those of most other married couples! No, my own Sybil! Soul of my soul! there is no woman that I ever did, or ever could prefer to you!" And he drew her to his bosom, and pressed her there in all good faith and true love. And his grave and tender rebuke did even more to tranquilize her jealousy than all his caresses had done.

"I know it! I know it, my dear husband! But it is only when I feel how imperfect, how unworthy of you, I am, that I ever have doubts!" she murmured with a sigh of infinite relief.



CHAPTER XI.

LOVE AND JEALOUSY.

There was a time when bliss Shone o'er her heart from every look of his; When but to see him, hear him, breathe the air In which he dwelt, was her soul's fondest prayer; When round him hung such a perpetual spell, Whate'er he did none ever did so well; Yet now he comes, brighter than ever, far, He beamed before; but ah! not bright for her.—MOORE.

Fortunately for the fascinated husband and the jealous wife, the Circuit Court was now sitting at Blackville, and the lawyer's professional duties demanded all Mr. Berner's time.

Only one year before this, when the struggling young lawyer depended upon his work for his bread, he could hardly get a paying client; now that he was entirely independent of his profession, he was overwhelmed with business. As the wealthy master of the Black Valley manor, with its rich dependencies of farms, quarries, mills, and hamlets, he might have led the easy life of a country gentleman. But in Lyon Berners' apprehension, work was duty; and so to work he went, as if he had had to get his living by it.

Every day he left home at nine o'clock in the morning, in order to be present at the opening of the court at ten. He reached home again at four in the afternoon, and dined with Sybil and Rosa. After dinner he retired to his study, and spent the evening in working up his briefs and preparing for the next day's business.

Thus he was entirely separated from his guest, who never saw him except at the table, with the breadth of the board between them, and almost entirely from his wife, who only had his company to herself at night.

Yet Sybil was content. Her love, if, in some of its phases, it was a jealous and exacting passion, in others was a noble and generous principle. She would not spare a glance, a smile, a caress of his, to any other woman; yet she would give him wholly up to his duty, his profession, his country, or to any grand impersonal object. And the few hours out of the twenty-four when she could enjoy his society apart from her dreaded rival, compensated her for the many when he was absent or engaged upon his professional duties.

But ah! this could not last!

It happened, very naturally, that while Mr. Lyon Berners spent his mornings in the court-house, Mrs. Lyon Berners spent hers in receiving the calls and congratulations of her friends, to whom she always presented her permanent visitor, Mrs. Blondelle.

At length two unconnected events happened at the same time. The court adjourned, and the last visit of ceremony was paid.

Sybil, at the instance of Mr. Berners, gave a dinner-party, and they entertained the judges and barristers of the court. And upon that occasion, Mrs. Blondelle of course was introduced, and equally of course, her beauty made a very great sensation. And Sybil was well pleased. She was perfectly willing that her protege should outshine her in every company, if only she did not outrival her in her husband's admiration.

But ah! whether it was that the long interruption of his conversations with the beautiful blonde had given a new zest to the pleasure he enjoyed in her society, or whether his admiration for her had been ever, under all circumstances, on the increase, or whether both these causes combined to influence his conduct, is not known; but it is certain that from this time, Lyon Berners became more and more blindly devoted to Rosa Blondelle. And yet, under and over and through all this, the husband loved his wife as he never did or could love any other woman. But Rosa Blondelle was one of those vain and shallow women who must and will have a sentimental flirtation or a platonic friendship with some man or boy, always on hand. She, like those of her mischievous class, really meant no harm, while doing a great deal of wrong. Such a woman will engage a husband's affections and break a wife's heart from mere vanity, and for mere pastime, without the slightest regard for either of her victims. And yet, because, they have not been grossly guilty, as well as deeply sinful, they retain their positions in society.

Rosa Blondelle's whole life lay in these sentimental flirtations and platonic friendships. Without a lover, she did not care to live at all. Yet hers was a sham love, though her victims were not often sham lovers. With her fair and most innocent face, Rosa Blondelle was false and shallow. And Lyon Berners knew this; and even while yielding himself to the fascination of her smiles, he could not help comparing her, to her great disadvantage, with his own true, earnest, deep-hearted wife.

But every morning, while Sybil was engaged in her domestic duties, which were now greatly increased by the preparations that were going on for the masquerade ball, Lyon Berners would be walking with Rosa Blondelle, exploring the romantic glens of the Black Valley, or wandering along the picturesque banks of the Black River. Or if the weather happened to be inclement, Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle would sit in the library together, deep in German mysticism or French sentiment.

Every evening Rosa sat at the grand piano, singing for him the most impassioned songs from the German and Italian operas; and Lyon hung over her chair turning her music, and enraptured with her beauty.

Ah! Rosa Blondelle! vain and selfish and shallow coquette! Trifle, if you must, with any other man's love, with any other woman's peace; but you had better invade the lair of the lioness, and seize her cubs—you had better walk blindfold upon the abyss of Hades, than come between Sybil Berners and her husband!

For Sybil saw it all! and not only as any other woman might have seen it, just as it was, but as the jealous wife did—with vast exaggerations and awful forebodings.

They did not suspect how much she knew, or how much more she imagined. Before them the refined instincts of the lady still kept down the angry passions of the woman.

Whenever her emotions were about to overcome her, she slipped away, not to her own room, where she was liable to interruption, but far up into the empty attics of the old house, where, in some corresponding chamber of desolation, she gave way to such storms of anguish and despair as leave the deepest

"Traces on heart and brain."

And after an hour or two she would return to the drawing-room, whence she had never been missed by the pair of sentimentalists, who had been too much absorbed in each other, and in Mozart or Beethoven, to notice her absence.

And while all unconscious of her, they continued their musical flirtation, she would sit with her back to the light, toying with her crochet-work and listening to Rosa's songs.

She was still as a volcano before it bursts forth to bury cities under its burning lava flood!

Why did she not, in the sacred privacy of their mutual apartment appeal to the better nature of her husband by telling him how much his flirtation with their guest pained her, his wife? Or else, why had she not spoken plainly with her guest?

Why? Because Sybil Berners had too much pride and too little faith to do the one or the other. She could not stoop to plead with her husband for the love that she thought he had withdrawn from her; still less could she bend to tell her guest how much his defection troubled her. Nor did she believe her interference would do any good. For, to Sybil Berners earnest nature, all things seemed earnest, and this vain and shallow flirtation wore the aspect of a deep, impassioned attachment. And in her forbearance she acted from instinct rather than from reason, for she never even thought of interfering between these platonists. So, outwardly at least, she was calm. But this calmness could not last. Her heart was bleeding, burning, breaking! and its prisoned flood of fire and blood must burst forth at length. The volcano seems quiet; but the pent up lava in its bosom must at last give forth mutterings of its impending irruption, and swiftly upon these mutterings must follow flames and ruin!

It happened thus with Sybil.

One morning, when the weather was too threatening to permit any one to indulge in an outdoor walk, it chanced that Lyon and Sybil Berners were sitting together at a centre-table in the parlor—Lyon reading the morning paper; Sybil trying to read a new magazine—when Rosa Blondelle, with her flowing, azure-hued robes and her floating golden locks, and her beaming smiles, entered the room and seated herself at the table, saying sweetly:

"My dear Mrs. Berners, is it to-morrow that you and I have arranged to drive out and return the calls that were made upon us?"

"Yes, madam," politely replied Sybil.

"Then, dear Mr. Berners, I shall have to ask you to write a few visiting-cards for me. I have not an engraved one in the world. But you write such a beautiful hand, that your writing will look like copper-plate. You will oblige me?" she inquired, smiling, and placing a pack of blank cards before him.

"With the greatest pleasure," answered Lyon Berners, promptly putting aside his paper.

Rosa turned to leave the room.

"Will you not remain with us?" courteously inquired Sybil.

"No, dear; much as I should like to do so," replied Rosa.

"But why?" inquired Lyon Berners, looking disappointed.

"Oh! because I have my dress to see about. We are far from all fashionable modistes here; but I must try to do honor to madam's masquerade for all that," laughed Rosa, as she passed gracefully out of the room.

With a sigh that seemed to his sorrowing wife to betray his regret for the beauty's departure, Lyon Berners drew the packet of blank cards before him, scattered them in a loose heap on his left hand, and then selecting one at a time, began to write. As he carefully wrote upon and finished each card, he as carefully laid it on his right hand, until a little heap grew there.

Sybil, who gloried in all her husband's accomplishments, from the greatest to the least, admired very much his skill in ornamental chirography. She drew her chair closer to the table, and took up the topmost card, and began to decipher, rather than to read, the name in the beautiful old English characters, so tangled in a thicket of rose-buds and forget-me-nots as to be scarcely legible. She looked closely and more closely at the name on the card.

What was there in it to drive all the color from her cheeks?

She snatched up and scrutinized a second card, a third, a fourth; then, springing to her feet, she seized the whole mass, hurled them into the fire, and turned, and confronted her husband.

Her teeth were clenched upon her bloodless lips, her face seemed marble, her eyes lambent flames.

He rose to his feet in surprise and dismay.

"SYBIL! what is all this? Why have you destroyed the cards?"

"Why?" she gasped, pressing both hands upon her heart, as if to keep down its horrible throbbings. "Why? Because they are lies! lies! LIES!"

"SYBIL! have you gone suddenly mad?" he cried, gazing at the "embodied storm" before him with increasing astonishment and consternation.

"No! I have suddenly come to my senses!" she gasped between the catches of her breath, for she could scarcely speak.

"You must calm yourself, and tell me what this means, my wife," said Lyon Berners, exerting a great control over himself, and pushing aside the last card he had written.

But she snatched up that card, glanced at it fiercely, tore it in two, and threw the fragments far apart, exclaiming in bitter triumph:

"Not yet! oh! not yet! I am not dead yet! Nor have the halls and acres of my fathers passed quite away from their daughter to the possession of a traitor and an ingrate."

He gazed upon her now in amazement and alarm. Had she gone suddenly mad?

She stood there before him the incarnation of the fiercest and intensest passion he had ever seen or imagined.

He went and took her in his arms, saying more gently than before:

"Sybil, what is it?"

She tried, harshly and cruelly, to break from him. But he held her in a fast, loving embrace, murmuring still:

"Sybil, you must tell me what troubles you?"

"What troubles me!" she furiously exclaimed. "Let me go, man! Your touch is a dishonor to me! Let me go!"

"But, dearest Sybil."

"Let me go, I say! What! will you use your brute strength to hold me?"

He dropped his arms, and left her free.

"No; I beg your pardon, Sybil. I thought you were my loving wife," he said.

"You were mistaken. I am not Rosa Blondelle!" she cried.

"Hush! hush! my dearest Sybil!" he muttered earnestly, as he went and closed and locked the parlor door, to save her from being seen by the servants in her present insane passion.

But she swept past him like a storm, and laid her hand on the lock. She found it fast.

"Open, and let me pass," she cried.

"No, no, my dear Sybil. Remain here until you are calmer, and then tell me—"

"Let me out, I say!"

"But, dearest Sybil."

"What! would you keep me a prisoner—by force?" she cried, with a cruel sneer.

He unlocked the door and set it wide open.

"No, even though you are a lunatic, as I do believe. Go, and expose your condition, if you must. I cannot restrain you by fair means, and I will not by foul."

And Sybil swept from the room, but she did not expose herself. She fled away to that "chamber of desolation" where she had passed so many agonizing hours, and threw herself, face downwards, upon the floor, and lay there in the collapse of utter despair.

Meanwhile Lyon Berners paced up and down the parlor floor.



CHAPTER XII.

"CRUEL AS THE GRAVE."

Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung From forest cave her shrieking young, And calm the raging lioness; But soothe not—mock not my distress.—BYRON.

Lyon Berners was utterly perplexed and troubled. He could not in any way explain to himself the sudden and furious passion of his wife.

Suddenly it occurred to him that it was in some way connected with the cards she had thrown into the fire. They were not all burned up. Some few had fallen scorched upon the hearth. These he gathered up and examined; and as he looked at one after another, his face expressed, in turn, surprise, dismay, and amusement. Then he burst out laughing. He really could not help doing so, serious as the subject was; for upon every single card, instead of Rosa Blondelle, he had written:

Mrs. ROSA BERNERS.

"Was there ever such a mischief of a mistake?" he exclaimed, as he ceased laughing and sat down by his table to consider what was to be done next.

"Poor Sybil! poor, dear, fiery-hearted child, it is no wonder! And yet, Heaven truly knows it was because I was thinking of you, and not of the owner of the cards, that I wrote that name upon them unconsciously," he said to himself, as he sat with his fine head bowed upon his hand, gravely reviewing the history of the last few days.

His eyes were opened now—not only to his wife's jealousy, but to his own thoughtless conduct in doing anything to arouse it.

In the innermost of his own soul he was so sure of the perfect integrity of his love for his wife, that it had never before occurred to him that she could doubt it—that any unconscious act or thoughtless gallantry on his part could cause her to doubt it.

Now, however, he remembered with remorse that, of late, since the rising of the court, all his mornings and evenings had been spent exclusively in the company of the beautiful blonde. Any wife under such circumstances might have been jealous; but few could have suffered such agonies of wounded love as wrung the bosom of Sybil Berners,—of Sybil Berners, the last of a race in whose nature more of the divine and more of the infernal met than in almost any other race that ever lived on earth.

Her husband thought of all this now. He remembered what lovers and what haters the men and women of her house had been.

He recalled how, in one generation, a certain Reginald Berners, who was engaged to be married to a very lovely young lady, on one occasion found his betrothed and an imaginary rival sitting side by side, amusing themselves with what they might have considered a very harmless flirtation, when, transported with jealous fury, he slew the man before the very eyes of the girl. For this crime Reginald was tried, but for some inexplicable reason, acquitted; and he lived to marry the girl for whose sake he had imbrued his hands in a fellow-man's blood.

He recalled how, in another generation, one Agatha Berners, in a frenzy of jealousy, had stabbed her rival, and then thrown herself into the Black Lake. Fortunately neither of the attempted crimes had been consummated, for the wounded woman recovered, and the would-be suicide lived to wear out her days in a convent.

Reflecting upon these terrible outbursts of the family passion, Lyon Berners became very much alarmed for Sybil.

He started up and went in search of her. He looked successively through the drawing-room, the dining-room, and library. Not finding her in any of these rooms, he ascended to the second floor and sought her in their own apartment. Still not finding her, his alarm became agony.

"I will search every square yard within these walls," he said, as he hurried through all the empty chambers of that floor, and then went up into the attic.

There, in the lumber-room—the chamber of desolation—he found his wife, lying with her face downwards on the floor. He hastened towards her, fearing that she was in a swoon. But no; she was only exhausted by the violence of her emotions.

Without saying a word, he lifted her in his arms as if she had been a child. She was too faint now to resist him. He carried her down stairs to her own chamber and laid her on the sofa, and while he gently smoothed the damp dark hair from her pale brow, he whispered softly:

"My wife, I know now what has troubled you. It was a great error, my own dear Sybil. You have no cause to doubt me, or to distress yourself."

She did not reply, but with a tearless sob, turned her face to the wall.

"It was of you that I was thinking, my beloved, when I wrote that name on the cards," he continued, as he still smoothed her hair with his light mesmeric touch. She did not repel his caresses, but neither did she reply to his words. And he saw, by the heaving of her bosom and the quivering of her lips, that the storm had not yet subsided.

He essayed once more to reassure her.

"Dear wife," he earnestly commenced, "you believe that my affections are inconstant, and that they have wandered from you?"

She answered by a nod and another tearless sob, but she did not look around or speak to him.

"Yet withal you believe me to be a man of truthful words?"

Again she nodded acquiescence.

"Then, dear Sybil, you must believe my words when I assure you, on my sacred truth and honor, that your suspicions of me are utterly erroneous."

Now she turned her head, opened her large dark eyes in astonishment, and gazed into his earnest face.

"As Heaven hears me, my own dear wife, I love no other woman in the world but you."

"But—you are almost always with her!" at length replied Sybil, with another dry sob.

"I confess that, dear; but it was because you were almost always absent on your domestic affairs."

"You hang enraptured over her, when she sings and plays!"

"Enraptured with her music, darling, not with her. To me she is a prima donna, whose performances I must admire and applaud—nothing more."

"Then I wish I was a prima donna too," said Sybil, bitterly.

"My wife!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, I do! I would be all in all to you, Lyon, as you are everything to me," she cried, her face quivering, her bosom heaving with emotion.

"My own dear Sybil, you are all in all to me. Do you not know, dear, that you are unique? that there is not another like you in the world; and that I value you and love you accordingly? What is this shallow-hearted blonde beauty to me? This woman, who, in a week, could forget the man who had robbed and deserted her, and give herself up to amusement! No, dear wife. I may be pleased with her good-natured efforts to please me; I may admire her beauty and delight in her music; but I care so little for herself, that were she to die to-day, I should only say, 'Poor thing,' and immediately forget her! While, if you were to die, dear wife, life would be a living death, and the world a sepulchre to me!"

"Is this true? Oh! is this indeed true?" exclaimed Sybil, in deep emotion.

"As I am a man of truth, it is, as true as Heaven!" answered Lyon Berners, earnestly.

And Sybil turned and threw herself in his arms, weeping for joy.

"You shall have no more cause for distress, dear, warm-hearted wife. This lady must find other audience for her music. For, as to me, I shall not indulge in her society at such a cost to your feelings," said Lyon Berners earnestly, as he returned her warm caress.

"No, no, no, no," exclaimed Sybil, generously. "You shall deny yourself no pleasure, for my sake, dear, dear Lyon! I am not such a churl as to require such a sacrifice. Only let me feel sure of your love, and then you may read with her all the morning, and play and sing with her all the evening, and I shall not care. I shall even be pleased, because you are so. But only let me feel sure of your love. For, oh! dear Lyon! I live only in your heart, and if any woman were to thrust me thence, I should die!"

"Nor man, nor woman, nor angel, nor devil, shall ever do that, dear Sybil," he earnestly answered.

The reconciliation between the husband and the wife was perfect. And Sybil was so happy that, in the lightness of her heart, she became kinder to Mrs. Blondelle than she had been for many days past.

But as for Mr. Berners, from this time he carefully avoided Mrs. Blondelle. He was as courteous to her as ever, even more courteous than ever when his wife was present, but as soon as Sybil would leave the room, Lyon would make some excuse and follow her. This went on for some days, during which Mrs. Blondelle, being cut short in her platonic flirtation, first wondered and then moped, and then resolved to win back her fancied slave. So she whitened her face with bismuth, to make it look pale and interesting, and she arranged her golden locks and flowing robes with the most studied air of graceful neglect, and she affected silence, pensiveness, and abstraction; and thus she utterly imposed on Lyon Berners, whose sympathies were awakened by her.

"Is it possible, that this pretty little fool can really be pleased with me, and pained by my neglect?" he inquired of himself. And then, human being like, he flattered himself and pitied her.

When this course of conduct had been kept up for a week, it happened one day that Sybil went alone to Blackville to purchase some articles for her approaching mask ball.

Lyon Berners was reclining on the sofa in the drawing-room, with the last number of the "North American Review" in his hands.

Suddenly a soft hand stole into his, and a soft voice murmured in his ear:

"Mr. Berners, how have I been so unhappy as to offend you?"

He looked up in surprise to see Rosa Blondelle standing by him. Her lovely face was very pale, her beautiful hair in disorder, her blue eyes full of tears, her tender voice tremulous with emotion.

As Lyon Berners met her appealing gaze, his heart smote him for his late coldness to her.

"In what manner have I been so unhappy as to offend you, Mr. Berners?" she repeated, tearfully.

"In no manner at all, dear. How could one so gentle as yourself offend any one?" exclaimed Lyon Berners, rising, and taking both her unresisting hands in his own; and feeling for the first time a sentiment of tenderness, as well as of admiration, for her.

"But I thought I had offended you. You have been so changed to me of late," murmured Rosa, with her blue eyes full of tears.

"No, no, dear, not really changed, indeed. Only—absorbed by other engagements," answered Lyon Berners, evasively.

"You are the only friend I have in the whole world. And if you should desert me, I should perish," murmured Rosa, pathetically.

"But I will never desert you, dear. Nor am I the only friend you have in the world. My wife is surely your friend," said Lyon Berners, earnestly.

Slowly and sorrowfully Rosa Blondelle shook her head, murmuring sadly:

"No woman ever was my friend. I know not why."

"I can easily imagine why. But in regard to my dear wife, you are mistaken. Surely she has proved herself your friend."

"She is a noble lady, and I honor her. She is my benefactress, and I thank her. But she is not my friend, and so I do not love her."

"I am sorry to hear you say so, dear."

"And I am sorry to be obliged to say so. But it is true. You are my only friend, Mr. Berners. The only friend I have in the wide, wide world."

"And do you love me?" inquired Lyon Berners, taking the siren's hand, and utterly yielding to her allurements; "say, fair one, do you love me?"

"Hush! hush!" breathed Rosa, drawing away her hand and covering her face—"hush! that is a question you must not ask, nor I answer."

"But—as a brother, I mean?" whispered Lyon.

"Oh! yes, yes, yes! as a dear brother, I love you dearly," fervently exclaimed Rosa.

"And as a dear sister you shall share my love and care always," earnestly answered Mr. Berners.

"And you will not be cold to me any longer?"

"No, dear."

"And you will come and listen to my poor little songs this evening, and let me do my best to amuse you?"

"Yes, dear, I will throw over all other engagements, and delight myself in your heavenly strains to-night," answered Lyon Berners.

"Oh! I am so happy to hear you promise that! Of late I have had no heart to open the piano. But to-night I will awaken for you its most glorious chords!"

He raised her hand to his lips, and thanked her warmly.

And just at that very instant Miss Tabitha Winterose appeared in the doorway, her tall, thin form drawn up to its utmost height, her pale, pinched face lengthened, and her dim blue eyes and skinny hands lifted up in surprise and disapprobation.

"Well!" simultaneously exclaimed Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle, as they instinctively drew away from each other.

But Miss Tabitha could not easily recover her composure. She was shocked and scandalized to see a gentleman and lady, who were not related to each other, sitting so close together, while the gentleman kissed the lady's hand!

"Did you want anything?" inquired Mr. Berners, rather impatiently.

"No, I didn't. Yes, I did," answered Miss Winterose, crossly and confusedly. "I came after that lady there to tell her that I think her child is going to be very sick, and I want her to come and look after him. That is, if she an't more pleasanter engaged!" added Miss Tabitha, scornfully.

"Please excuse me, Mr. Berners," murmured Rosa, sweetly, as she got up to go out with the housekeeper "Old Cat!" she muttered, under her breath, as soon as she was out of Lyon's hearing.

When Mr Berners was left alone, he did not resume the reading of his review. His heart became the prey of bitter-sweet reflections, made up of gratified self-love and of severe self-reproach.

"That beautiful creature does care for me, and is pained by my coldness! Ah! but I hope and trust she loves me only as a sister loves a brother! She has no brother, poor child! And her heart must have some one to lean on! I must be that one, for she has chosen me, and I will not be so recreant to humanity as to reject her trust."

Then his conscience smote him. And he felt that he had shown more tenderness for this lady than the occasion called for, or than his duty warranted. He had called her "dear;" he had kissed her hand; he had asked her if she loved him! And this in the face of all his late protestations to his wife!

Lyon Berners was an honorable man and devotedly attached to his wife, and he was shocked now at the recollection of how far he had been drawn away from the strict line of duty by this lovely blonde!

But then he said to himself that he had only caressed and soothed Rosa in a brotherly way; and that it was a great pity Sybil should be of such a jealous and exacting nature, as to wish to prevent him from showing a little brotherly love to this lovely and lonely lady.

And worried by these opposing thoughts and feelings, Lyon Berners left his sofa and began to pace up and down the length of the drawing-room floor.

In truth now, for the first time, the mischief was done! The siren had at last ensnared him, in her distress and dishabille, with her tears and tenderness, as she never had done in the full blaze of her adorned beauty, or by the most entrancing strains of divine melody.

While Lyon Berners paced up and down the drawing-room floor, he seemed to see again the tender, tearful gaze of her soft blue eyes upon him; seemed to hear again the melting tones of her melodious voice pleading with him: "How have I been so unhappy as to offend you, Mr. Berners?" What a contrast this sweet humility of friendship with the fiery pride of Sybil's love!

While he was almost involuntarily drawing this comparison, he heard the wheels of the carriage that brought Sybil home roll up to the door and stop.

From her morning drive through the bright and frosty air, Sybil entered the drawing-room blooming, and glowing with health and happiness. For since that full explanation with her husband, she had been very happy.

Lyon Berners hastened to meet her. And perhaps it was his secret and painful consciousness of that little episode with Rosa, that caused him to throw into his manner even more than his usual show of affection, as he drew her to his bosom and kissed her fondly.

"Why!" exclaimed Sybil, laughing and pleased, "you meet me as if I had been gone a month, instead of a morning!"

"Your absence always seems long to me, dear wife, however short it may really be," he answered earnestly. And he spoke the truth; for notwithstanding his admiration of Rosa, and the invidious comparison he had just drawn between her and Sybil, in his heart of hearts he still loved his wife truly.

She threw off her bonnet and shawl, and sat down beside him and began to rattle away like a happy girl, telling him all the little incidents of her morning's drive—whom she had seen, what she had purchased, and how excited everybody was on the subject of her approaching fancy ball.

"The first one ever given in this neighborhood, you know. Lyon," she added.

And having told him all the news, she snatched up her bonnet and shawl and ran up-stairs to her own room, where she found her thin housekeeper engaged in sorting out laces and snivelling.

"Why, what's the matter now, Miss Tabby?" cheerfully inquired Sybil.

"Well, then, to tell you the truth, ma'am, I am dreadfully exercised into my own mind," answered Miss Winterose, wiping a tear from the tip of her nose.

"What about, now?" gayly demanded Sybil, who felt not the slightest degree of alarm on account of Miss Tabby, knowing that lady to be a constitutional and habitual whimperer.

"Then, it's all along of the wickedness and artfulness and deceitfulness of this here world."

"Well, never mind, Miss Tabby; you'll not have to answer for it all. But what particular instance of wickedness frets your soul now?" laughed Sybil.

"Why, now, there's where it is! I don't know whether I ought to tell, or whether I ought'n to; nor whether, if I was to tell, I would be looked upon into the light of a mischief-maker, or into the light of a true friend!" whimpered Miss Winterose.

"I can soon settle that question of ethics for you," laughed Sybil, all unsuspicious of what was coming.

"Do just as your conscience directs you, Miss Tabby, no matter how people may look upon you."

"Very well, then, ma'am; for my conscience do order me to speak! Oh, Miss Sybil! I have knowed you ever since you was a baby in my arms, and I can't bear to have you so deceived and imposed upon by that there treacherous, ungrateful White Cat!"