she added, bending towards her, and allowing her voice to become grave,
"how could you think of coming to Verner's Pride? It was not right. You
should have come home."

"I thought Mrs. Verner was living still."

"And if she had been?--This is Mr. Lionel's house now; not hers. You
ought to have come home, my dear. You will come home with us now, will
you not?"

"I suppose you'll allow me to have some breakfast first," was Sibylla's
answer. Secure in her future position, she was willing to go home to
them temporarily now. "Why is papa gone away, Deborah?"

"He will be coming back some time, dear," was Deborah's evasive answer,
spoken soothingly. "But tell us a little about yourself, Sibylla. When
poor Frederick--"

"Not this morning, Deborah," she interrupted, putting up her hand. "I
will tell you all another time. It was an unlucky voyage."

"Have you realised John's money that he left? That he lost, I should
rather say."

"I have realised nothing," replied Sibylla--"nothing but ill luck. We
never got tidings of John in any way, beyond the details of his death;
we never saw a particle of the gold belonging to him, or could hear of
it. And my husband lost his desk the day we landed--as I sent you word;
and I had no money out there, and I have only a few shillings in my
pocket."

This catalogue of ills nearly stunned Deborah and Amilly West. They had
none too much of life's great need, gold, for themselves; and the burden
of keeping Sibylla would be sensibly felt. A tolerably good table it was
indispensable to maintain, on account of Jan, and that choice eater,
Master Cheese; but how they had to pinch in the matter of dress, they
alone knew. Sibylla also knew, and she read arightly the drooping of
their faces.

"Never mind, Deborah; cheer up, Amilly. It is only for a time. Ere very
long I shall be leaving you again."

"Surely not for Australia!" returned Deborah, the hint startling her.

"Australia? Well, I am not sure that it will be _quite_ so far,"
answered Sibylla, in a little spirit of mischief. And, in the bright
prospect of the future, she forgot past and present grievances, turned
her laughing blue eyes upon her sisters, and, to their great scandal,
began to waltz round and round the room.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

BROTHER JARRUM.

By the light of a single tallow candle which flared aloft on a shelf in
Peckaby's shop, consecrated in more prosperous days to wares, but bare
now, a large collected as