gh and gibe, the disdainful look or sharp rebuke with
which their salutations were mostly received.

Suddenly, as the company, two by two, paced up the street, Sibyll
uttered a faint exclamation, and strove to snatch her hand from the
Nevile's grasp. Her eye rested upon one of the horsemen, who rode last,
and who seemed in earnest conversation with a dame, who, though scarcely
in her first youth, excelled all her fair companions in beauty of face
and grace of horsemanship, as well as in the costly equipments of the
white barb that caracoled beneath her easy hand. At the same moment the
horseman looked up and gazed steadily at Sibyll, whose countenance
grew pale, and flushed, in a breath. His eye then glanced rapidly at
Marmaduke; a half-smile passed his pale, firm lips; he slightly raised
the plumed cap from his brow, inclined gravely to Sibyll, and, turning
once more to his companion, appeared to answer some question she
addressed to him as to the object of his salutation, for her look,
which was proud, keen, and lofty, was raised to Sibyll, and then dropped
somewhat disdainfully, as she listened to the words addressed her by the
cavalier.

The lynx eyes of the tymbesteres had seen the recognition; and their
leader, laying her bold hand on the embossed bridle of the horseman,
exclaimed, in a voice shrill and loud enough to be heard in the balcony
above, "Largess! noble lord, largess! for the sake of the lady thou
lovest best!"

The fair equestrian turned away her head at these words; the nobleman
watched her a moment, and dropped some coins into the timbrel.

"Ha, ha!" cried the tymbestere, pointing her long arm to Sibyll, and
springing towards the balcony,--

"The cushat would mate
Above her state,
And she flutters her wings round the falcon's beak;
But death to the dove
Is the falcon's love!
Oh, sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak!"

Before this rude song was ended, Sibyll had vanished from the place;
the cavalcade had disappeared. The timbrel-players, without deigning to
notice Marmaduke, darted elsewhere to ply their discordant trade, and
the Nevile, crossing himself devoutly, muttered, "Jesu defend us! Those
she Will-o'-the-wisps are eno' to scare all the blood out of one's body.
What--a murrain on them!--do they portend, flitting round and round, and
skirting off, as if the devil's broomstick was behind them! By the Mass!
the