nsy. She had never in her life been contradicted or
opposed. No desire of her heart had ever been left for a moment
unsatisfied. She never knew until now the meaning of suspense or
disappointment. And now here was a man whom she wildly loved, and who
worshipped her, but who, from some delicate pride in his poverty,
_would_ not speak, while she, of course, _could_ not.

Yet Sybil Berners was no weak "Viola," who would

"Let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek, and pine in thought."

She was rather a strong "Helena," who would dare all and bear all to
gain her lover.

Sybil did all that a young lady of her rank could do in the premises.
She made her doting father give dinner parties and invite her lover to
them. But the briefless young lawyer in the napless hat and thread-bare
coat never accepted one of these invitations, for the very simple
reason that he had no evening dress in which to appear.

Under these circumstances, where any other young girl might have grown
languid and sorrowful, Sybil became excitable and violent. She had
always had the fiery temper of her race, but it had very seldom been
kindled by a breath of provocation. Now, however, it frequently broke
out without the slightest apparent cause. No one in the house could
account for this accession of ill-temper--not her anxious father, nor
Miss Tabitha Winterose, the housekeeper, not Joseph Joy, the house
steward, nor any of the maids or men-servants under them.

"She's possessed of the devil," said Miss Winterose, to her confidant,
the house steward.

"That's nothing new. All the Berners is possessed of _that_ possession.
It's entailed family property, and can't be got rid of," grimly
responded Joe.

"Something has crossed her; something has crossed her very much,"
muttered her old father to himself, as he sat alone in his arm-chair in
the warm chimney-corner of his favorite sitting-room.

Yes, indeed, everything crossed her. She was unhappy for the first time
in her life, and she thought it was clearly the duty of her father or
some other one of her slaves to make her happy. She was kept waiting,
and it was everybody's fault, and everybody should be made to suffer for
it. It was no use to reason with Sybil Berners. One might as well have
reasoned with a conflagration.

It was about this time, too, that her aged father began to feel symptoms
that warned him of the approach of that sudden death by congestion of