r with silent respect. With one or two Sybil was not entirely
unacquainted; at least by name or person. To them, as she passed, she
bent her head; and then going up to her father, who was about to welcome
her, she said, in a tone of calmness and with a semblance of composure,
"If you are going out, dear father, I should like to see you for one
moment first."

"A moment, friends," said Gerard, "with your leave;" and he accompanied
his daughter into the house. He would have stopped in the hall, but
she walked on to their room, and Gerard, though pressed for time, was
compelled to follow her. When they had entered their chamber. Sybil
closed the door with care, and then, Gerard sitting, or rather leaning
carelessly, on the edge of the table, she said, "We are once more
together, dear father; we will never again he separated."

Gerard sprang quickly on his legs, his eye kindled, his cheek flushed.
"Something has happened to you, Sybil!"

"No," she said, shaking her head mournfully, "not that; but something
may happen to you."

"How so, my child?" said her father, relapsing into his customary
good-tempered placidity, and speaking in an easy, measured, almost
drawling tone that was habitual to him.

"You are in danger," said Sybil, "great and immediate. No matter at this
moment how I am persuaded of this I wish no mysteries, but there is no
time for details. The government will strike at the Convention; they are
resolved. This outbreak at Birmingham has brought affairs to a crisis.
They have already arrested the leaders there; they will seize those who
remain here in avowed correspondence with them."

"If they arrest all who are in correspondence with the Convention," said
Gerard, "they will have enough to do."

"Yes; but you take a leading part," said Sybil; "you are the individual
they would select."

"Would you have me hide myself?" said Gerard, "just because something is
going on besides talk."

"Besides talk!" exclaimed Sybil. "O! my father, what thoughts are these!
It may be that words are vain to save us; but feeble deeds are vainer
far than words."

"I do not see that the deeds, though I have nothing to do with them, are
so feeble," said Gerard; "their boasted police are beaten, and by the
isolated movement of an unorganized mass. What if the outbreak had not
been a solitary one? What if the people had been disciplined?"

"What if everything were changed, if everything were contrary to what it
is?" said