rity of beauty.
Her accomplishments, uncommon in that age among her sex, had aided her
charm of person; her natural pride, which, though hitherto latent, was
high and ardent, fed her heart with sweet hopes; a bright career seemed
to extend before her; and, at peace as to her father's safety, relieved
from the drudging cares of poverty, her fancy was free to follow
the phantasms of sanguine youth through the airy land of dreams. And
therefore it was that the maid was changed!

At the sight of the delicate beauty, the self-possessed expression,
the courtly dress, the noble air of Sibyll, Nicholas Alwyn recoiled and
turned pale; he no longer marvelled at her rejection of Marmaduke, and
he started at the remembrance of the bold thoughts which he had dared
himself to indulge.

The girl smiled at the young man's confusion.

"It is not prosperity that spoils the heart," she said touchingly,
"unless it be mean indeed. Thou rememberest, Master Alwyn, that when God
tried His saint, it was by adversity and affliction."

"May thy trial in these last be over," answered Alwyn; "but the humble
must console their state by thinking that the great have their trials
too; and, as our homely adage hath it, 'That is not always good in
the maw which is sweet in the mouth.' Thou seest much of my gentle
foster-brother, Mistress Sibyll?"

"But in the court dances, Master Alwyn; for most of the hours in which
my lady duchess needs me not are spent here. Oh, my father hopes great
things! and now at last fame dawns upon him."

"I rejoice to hear it, mistress; and so, having paid ye both my homage,
I take my leave, praying that I may visit you from time to time, if it
be only to consult this worshipful master touching certain improvements
in the horologe, in which his mathematics can doubtless instruct me.
Farewell. I have some jewels to show to the Lady of Bonville."

"The Lady of Bonville!" repeated Sibyll, changing colour; "she is a dame
of notable loveliness."

"So men say,--and mated to a foolish lord; but scandal, which spares
few, breathes not on her,--rare praise for a court dame. Few Houses can
have the boast of Lord Warwick's,--'that all the men are without fear,
and all the women without stain.'"

"It is said," observed Sibyll, looking down, "that my Lord Hastings once
much affectioned the Lady Bonville. Hast thou heard such gossip?"

"Surely, yes; in the city we hear all the tales of the court; for many
a courtier, following