unds, and without other resource than Sibyll's society in the
solitude of his confinement, was not proof against the temptation which
one so young and so sweetly winning brought to his fancy or his senses.
The poor Sibyll--she was no faultless paragon,--she was a rare and
singular mixture of many opposite qualities in heart and in intellect!
She was one moment infantine in simplicity and gay playfulness; the next
a shade passed over her bright face, and she uttered some sentence of
that bitter and chilling wisdom, which the sense of persecution, the
cruelty of the world, had already taught her. She was, indeed, at that
age when the Child and the Woman are struggling against each other. Her
character was not yet formed,--a little happiness would have ripened
it at once into the richest bloom of goodness. But sorrow, that ever
sharpens the intellect, might only serve to sour the heart. Her mind
was so innately chaste and pure, that she knew not the nature of the
admiration she excited; but the admiration pleased her as it pleases
some young child; she was vain then, but it was an infant's vanity, not
a woman's. And thus, from innocence itself, there was a fearlessness, a
freedom, a something endearing and familiar in her manner, which might
have turned a wiser head than Marmaduke Nevile's. And this the more,
because, while liking her young guest, confiding in him, raised in her
own esteem by his gallantry, enjoying that intercourse of youth with
youth so unfamiliar to her, and surrendering herself the more to its
charm from the joy that animated her spirits, in seeing that her father
had forgotten his humiliation, and returned to his wonted labours,--she
yet knew not for the handsome Nevile one sentiment that approached to
love. Her mind was so superior to his own, that she felt almost as if
older in years, and in their talk her rosy lips preached to him in grave
advice.

On the landing, by Marmaduke's chamber, there was a large oriel casement
jutting from the wall. It was only glazed at the upper part, and that
most imperfectly, the lower part being closed at night or in inclement
weather with rude shutters. The recess formed by this comfortless
casement answered, therefore, the purpose of a balcony; it commanded
a full view of the vicinity without, and gave to those who might be
passing by the power also of indulging their own curiosity by a view of
the interior.

Whenever he lost sight of Sibyll, and had grown weary o