you doing?" asked Lionel.

"Trying on wreaths," she replied.

"So I perceive. But why?"

"To see which suits me best. This looks too white for me, does it not?"
she added, turning her countenance towards him.

If to be the same hue as the complexion was "too white," it certainly
did look so. The dead white of the roses was not more utterly colourless
than Sibylla's face. She was like a ghost; she often looked so now.

"Sibylla," he said, without answering her question, "you are surely not
thinking of going to Sir Edmund's to-morrow night?"

"Yes, I am."

"You said you would write a refusal!"

"I know I _said_ it. I saw how cross-grained you were going to be over
it, and that's why I said it to you. I accepted the invitation."

"But, my dear, you must not go!"

Sibylla was flinging off the white wreath, and taking up a pink one,
which she began to fix in her hair. She did not answer.

"After all," deliberated she, "I have a great mind to wear pearls. Not a
wreath at all."

"Sibylla! I say you _must_ not go."

"Now, Lionel, it is of no use your talking. I have made up my mind to
go; I did at first; and go I shall. Don't you remember," she continued,
turning her face from the glass towards him, her careless tone changing
for one of sharpness, "that papa said I must not be crossed?"

"But you are not in a state to go out," remonstrated Lionel. "Jan
forbids it utterly."

"Jan? Jan's in your pay. He says what you tell him to say."

"Child, how can you give utterance to such things?" he asked in a tone
of emotion. "When Jan interdicts your going out he has only your welfare
at heart. And you _know_ that I have it. Evening air and scenes of
excitement are equally pernicious for you."

"I shall go," returned Sibylla. _"You_ are going, you know," she
resentfully said. "I wonder you don't propose that I shall be locked up
at home in a dark closet, while you are there, dancing."

A moment's deliberation in his mind, and a rapid resolution. "I shall
not go, Sibylla," he rejoined. "I shall stay at home with you."

"Who says you are going to stay at home?"

"I say it myself. I intend to do so. I shall do so."

"Oh! Since when, pray, have you come to that decision?"

Had she not the penetration to see that he had come to it then--then, as
he talked to her; that he had come to it for her sake? That she should
not have it to say he went out while she was at home. Perhaps she did
see it; but it was nearly imposs