ringlets into their proper
place, and dropped her hands by her side, at the entrance of Lionel
Verner.

"Oh, Lionel! is it you?" said she, with as much composure as if she had
not been caught gazing at herself. "I was looking at this," pointing to
an inverted tumbler on the mantel-piece. "Is it not strange that we
should see a moth at this cold season? Amilly found it this afternoon
on the geraniums."

Lionel Verner advanced and bent his head to look at the pretty speckled
moth reposing so still on its green leaf. Did he see through the
artifice? Did he suspect that the young lady had been admiring her own
pretty face, and not the moth? Not he. Lionel's whole heart had long ago
been given to that vain butterfly, Sibylla West, who was gay and
fluttering, and really of little more use in life than the moth. How was
it that he had suffered himself to love _her_? Suffered! Love plays
strange tricks, and it has fooled many a man as it was fooling Lionel
Verner.

And what of Sibylla? Sibylla did not love him. The two ruling passions
of her heart were vanity and ambition. To be sometime the mistress of
Verner's Pride was a very vista of desire, and therefore she encouraged
Lionel. She did not encourage him very much; she was rather in the habit
of playing fast and loose with him; but that only served to rivet
tighter the links of his chain. All the love--such as it was!--that
Sibylla West was capable of giving, was in possession of Frederick
Massingbird. Strange tricks again! It was scarcely credible that one
should fall in love with _him_ by the side of attractive Lionel; but so
it had been. Sibylla loved Frederick Massingbird for himself, she liked
Lionel because he was the heir to Verner's Pride, and she had managed to
keep both her slaves.

Lionel had never spoken of his love. He knew that his marriage with
Sibylla West would be so utterly distasteful to Mr. Verner, that he was
content to wait. He knew that Sibylla could not mistake him--could not
mistake what his feelings were; and he believed that she also was
content to wait until he should be his own master and at liberty to ask
for her. When that time should come, what did she intend to do with
Frederick Massingbird, who made no secret _to her_ that he loved her and
expected to make her his wife? Sibylla did not know; she did not much
care; she was of a careless nature, and allowed the future to take its
chance.

The only person who had penetrated to the secre