h! verily, it is mere matter for scorn and laughter."

These philosophical propositions and distinctions did not seem to have
their due effect upon Adam. He smiled, however, gently upon his guest,
and with a blush over his pale face, said, "I am rightly chastised, good
young man; mean was I, methinks, and sordid to take from thee thy good
gold. But thou knowest not what fever burns in the brain of a man who
feels that, had he wealth, his knowledge could do great things,--such
things!--I thought to repay thee well. Now the frenzy is gone, and
I, who an hour ago esteemed myself a puissant sage, sink in mine own
conceit to a miserable blinded fool. Child, I am very weak; I will lay
me down and rest."

So saying, the poor philosopher went his way to his chamber, leaning on
his daughter's arm.

In a few minutes Sibyll rejoined Marmaduke, who had returned to the
hall, and informed him that her father had lain down a while to compose
himself.

"It is a hard fate, sir," said the girl, with a faint smile,--"a hard
fate, to be banned and accursed by the world, only because one has
sought to be wiser than the world is."

"Douce maiden," returned the Nevile, "it is happy for thee that thy sex
forbids thee to follow thy father's footsteps, or I should say his hard
fate were thy fair warning."

Sibyll smiled faintly, and after a pause, said, with a deep blush,--

"You have been generous to my father; do not misjudge him. He would give
his last groat to a starving beggar. But when his passion of scholar and
inventor masters him, thou mightest think him worse than miser. It is an
overnoble yearning that ofttimes makes him mean."

"Nay," answered Marmaduke, touched by the heavy sigh and swimming eyes
with which the last words were spoken; "I have heard Nick Alwyn's uncle,
who was a learned monk, declare that he could not constrain himself to
pray to be delivered from temptation, seeing that he might thereby lose
an occasion for filching some notable book! For the rest," he added,
"you forget how much I owe to Master Warner's hospitality."

He took her hand with a frank and brotherly gallantry as he spoke; but
the touch of that small, soft hand, freely and innocently resigned to
him, sent a thrill to his heart--and again the face of Sibyll seemed to
him wondrous fair.

There was a long silence, which Sibyll was the first to break. She
turned the conversation once more upon Marmaduke's views in life. It had
been easy for a dee