another. One who can enhance his value by coupling it
with a coronet."

"Don't take the trouble, Lucy. I am holding it."

It was Lionel who spoke. In her confusion she had not loosed hold of the
cake-basket, although he had taken it. Quietly, impassively, in the most
unruffled manner spoke he, smiling carelessly. Only for a moment had his
self-control been shaken. "Will you take a biscuit, Dr. West?" he
asked; and the doctor chose one.

"Lucy, my dear, will you step here to me?"

The request came from the other end of the room, from Lady Verner.
Lionel, who was about to place the cake-basket on the table, stopped and
held out his arm to Lucy, to conduct her to his mother. They went
forward, utterly unconscious that Sibylla was casting angry and jealous
glances at them; conscious only that those sacred feelings in either
heart, so well hid from the world, had been stirred to their very
depths.

The door opened, and one of the servants entered. "Mr. Jan is wanted."

"Who's been taken ill now, I wonder?" cried Jan, descending from the arm
of his mother's sofa, where he had been perched.

In the ante-room was Master Cheese, looking rueful.

"There's a message come from Squire Pidcock's," cried he in a most
resentful tone. "Somebody's to attend immediately. Am _I_ to go?"

"I suppose you'd faint at having to go, after being up to Miss
Hautley's," returned Jan. "You'd never survive the two, should you?"

"Well, you know, Jan, it's a good mile and a half to Pidcock's, and I
had to go to the other place without my tea," remonstrated Master
Cheese.

"I dare say Miss Deb has given you your tea since you came home."

"But it's not like having it at the usual hour. And I couldn't finish it
in comfort, when this message came."

"Be off back and finish it now, then," said Jan. And the young gentleman
departed with alacrity, while Jan made the best of his way to Squire
Pidcock's.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

AN APPEAL TO JOHN MASSINGBIRD.

Lionel Verner walked home with Dr. West, later in the evening. "What do
you think of Sibylla?" was his first question, before they had well
quitted the gates.

"My opinion is not a favourable one, so far as I can judge at present,"
replied Dr. West. "She must not be crossed, Mr. Verner."

"Heaven is my witness that she is not crossed by me, Dr. West," was the
reply of Lionel, given more earnestly than the occasion seemed to call
for. "From the hour I married her, my whole life h