gation, Lord Skye gathered
that the entire city was to be roofed in and forty millions of people
expected, but his own concern in the affair was limited to the flowers
he hoped to receive.

"All young and beautiful women," said he to Sybil, "are to send me
flowers. I prefer Jacqueminot roses, but will accept any handsome
variety, provided they are not wired. It is diplomatic etiquette that
each lady who sends me flowers shall reserve at least one dance for me.
You will please inscribe this at once upon your tablets, Miss Ross."

To Madeleine this ball was a godsend, for it came just in time to
divert Sybil's mind from its troubles. A week had now passed since that
revelation of Sybil's heart which had come like an earthquake upon
Mrs. Lee. Since then Sybil had been nervous and irritable, all the more
because she was conscious of being watched. She was in secret ashamed of
her own conduct, and inclined to be angry with Carrington, as though
he were responsible for her foolishness; but she could not talk
with Madeleine on the subject without discussing Mr. Ratcliffe, and
Carrington had expressly forbidden her to attack Mr. Ratcliffe until it
was clear that Ratcliffe had laid himself open to attack. This reticence
deceived poor Mrs. Lee, who saw in her sister's moods only that
unrequited attachment for which she held herself solely to blame. Her
gross negligence in allowing Sybil to be improperly exposed to such
a risk weighed heavily on her mind. With a saint's capacity for
self-torment, Madeleine wielded the scourge over her own back until the
blood came. She saw the roses rapidly fading from Sybil's cheeks, and
by the help of an active imagination she discovered a hectic look
and symptoms of a cough. She became fairly morbid on the subject,
and fretted herself into a fever, upon which Sybil sent, on her own
responsibility, for the medical man, and Madeleine was obliged to dose
herself with quinine. In fact, there was much more reason for anxiety
about her than for her anxiety about Sybil, who, barring a little
youthful nervousness in the face of responsibility, was as healthy
and comfortable a young woman as could be shown in America, and whose
sentiment never cost her five minutes' sleep, although her appetite may
have become a shade more exacting than before. Madeleine was quick to
notice this, and surprised her cook by making daily and almost hourly
demands for new and impossible dishes, which she exhausted a librar