can be seen through the muslin
moving her chest up and down, as it used to be seen--a lovely vision
still, with her golden hair clustering about her; but her hands are hot
and trembling, and her frame is painfully thin. Certainly she does not
look fit to enter upon evening gaiety, and Lady Verner in addressing her
son, "You will go with me, Lionel," proved that she never so much as
cast a thought to the improbability that Sibylla would venture thither.

"If--you--particularly wish it, mother," was Lionel's reply, spoken with
hesitation.

"Do you not wish to go?" rejoined Lady Verner.

"I would very much prefer not," he replied.

"Nonsense, Lionel! I don't think you have gone out once since you left
Verner's Pride. Staying at home won't mend matters. I _wish_ you to go
with me; I shall make a point of it."

Lady Verner spoke with some irritation, and Lionel said no more. He
supposed he must acquiesce.

It was no long-timed invitation of weeks. The cards arrived on the
Monday, and the _fete_ was for the following Thursday. Lionel thought no
more about it; he was not as the ladies, whose toilettes would take all
of that time to prepare. On the Wednesday, Decima took him aside.

"Lionel, do you know that Mrs. Verner intends to go to-morrow evening?"

Lionel paused; paused from surprise.

"You must be mistaken, Decima. She sent a refusal."

"I fancy that she did not send a refusal. And I feel sure she is
thinking of going. You will not judge that I am unwarrantably
interfering," Decima added in a tone of deprecation. "I would not do
such a thing. But I thought it was right to apprise you of this. She is
not well enough to go out."

With a pressure of the hand on his sister's shoulder, and a few muttered
words of dismay, which she did not catch, Lionel sought his wife. No
need of questioning, to confirm the truth of what Decima had said.
Sibylla was figuring off before the glass, after the manner of her
girlish days, with a wreath of white flowers on her head. It was her
own sitting-room, the pretty room of the blue and white panels; and the
tables and chairs were laden with other wreaths, with various head
ornaments. She was trying their different effects, when, on turning
round her head as the door opened, she saw it was her husband. His
presence did not appear to discompose her, and she continued to place
the wreath to her satisfaction, pulling it here and there with her thin
and trembling hands.

"What are