o
tell stories I ever comed across in all my borned days. She tells
every sort of story about giants and fairies and adventures, and
stories of little girls just like me. Does she tell you stories about
men just like you, and is that why you like to be with her?"

"Well, I can't honestly say that she has ever yet told me a story, but
I will ask her to do so."

"Do," said Sibyl; "ask her to tell you a story about a man like
yourself. Make him rather pwoper and stiff and shy, and let him blush
sometimes. You do, you know you do. Maybe it will do you good to hear
about him. Now come along and let's find her."

So Sibyl and Rochester hunted all over the place for Lady Helen, and
when they found her not, for she had gone to the nearest village on a
commission with one of the children, Rochester's face looked somewhat
grave, and his answers to the child were a little _distrait_. Sibyl
said to him in a tone of absolute sympathy and good faith--

"Cheer up, won't you? She is quite certain to marry you in the long
run."

"Don't talk like that," said Rochester in a voice of pain.

"Don't what? You do want to marry Lady Helen. I heard mother say so
yesterday. I heard her say so to Hortense. Hortense was brushing her
hair, and mother said, 'It would be a good match on the whole for Lady
Helen, 'cos she is as poor as a church mouse, and Jim Rochester has
money.' Is my darling Lady Helen as poor as a church mouse, and have
you lots of money, Mr. Rochester?"

"I have money, but not lots. You ought not to repeat what you hear,"
said the young man.

"But why? I thought everybody knew. You are always trying to make her
marry you, I see it in your eyes; you don't know how you look when you
look at her, oh--ever so eager, same as I look when father's in the
room and he is not talking to me. I hope you will marry her, more
especial if she's as poor as a church mouse. I never knew why mice
were poor, nor why mother said it, but she did. Oh, and there is
mother, I must fly to her; good-by--good-by."

Rochester concealed his feelings as best he could, and hurried
immediately into a distant part of the grounds, where he cogitated
over what Sibyl, in her childish, way, had revealed.

The pony had been purchased, and Sibyl had ridden it once. It was a
bright bay with a white star on its forehead. It was a well-groomed,
well-trained little animal, and Lord Grayleigh had given Sibyl her
first riding lesson, and had shown her how to hol