e thy fault for thy flattery; and I pray thee, in my
father's name, to stay and sup with thy friend." Nicholas bowed low,
and still riveted his eyes on the book with such open admiration, that
Marmaduke thought it right to excuse his abstraction; but there was
something in that admiration which raised the spirits of Sibyll, which
gave her hope when hope was well-nigh gone; and she became so vivacious,
so debonair, so charming, in the flow of a gayety natural to her, and
very uncommon with English maidens, but which she took partly, perhaps,
from her French blood, and partly from the example of girls and maidens
of French extraction in Margaret's court, that Nicholas Alwyn thought he
had never seen any one so irresistible. Madge had now served the evening
meal, put in her head to announce it, and Sibyll withdrew to summon her
father.

"I trust he will not tarry too long, for I am sharp set!" muttered
Marmaduke. "What thinkest thou of the damozel?"

"Marry," answered Alwyn, thoughtfully, "I pity and marvel at her. There
is eno' in her to furnish forth twenty court beauties. But what good can
so much wit and cunning do to an honest maiden?"

"That is exactly my own thought," said Marmaduke; and both the young men
sunk into silence, till Sibyll re-entered with her father.

To the surprise of Marmaduke, Nicholas Alwyn, whose less gallant manner
he was inclined to ridicule, soon contrived to rouse their host from his
lethargy, and to absorb all the notice of Sibyll; and the surprise was
increased, when he saw that his friend appeared not unfamiliar with
those abstruse and mystical sciences in which Adam was engaged.

"What!" said Adam, "you know, then, my deft and worthy friend Master
Caxton! He hath seen notable things abroad--"

"Which, he more than hints," said Nicholas, "will lower the value of
those manuscripts this fair damozel has so couthly enriched; and that
he hopes, ere long, to show the Englishers how to make fifty, a
hundred,--nay even five hundred exemplars of the choicest book, in a
much shorter time than a scribe would take in writing out two or three
score pages in a single copy."

"Verily," said Marmaduke, with a smile of compassion, "the poor man must
be somewhat demented; for I opine that the value of such curiosities
must be in their rarity; and who would care for a book, if five hundred
others had precisely the same?--allowing always, good Nicholas, for thy
friend's vaunting and over-crowing. Five