a gentleman, and I should have been loth to stand idly by
when the torture was talked of for a free-born Englishman, let alone a
scholar. And where is your fair daughter, Master Warner? I suppose you
see but little of her now she is the great dame's waiting-damsel?"

"And why so, Master Alwyn?" asked a charming voice; and Alwyn for the
first time perceived the young form of Sibyll, by the embrasure of a
window, from which might be seen in the court below a gay group of lords
and courtiers, with the plain, dark dress of Hastings, contrasting their
gaudy surcoats, glittering with cloth-of-gold. Alwyn's tongue clove
to his mouth; all he had to say was forgotten in a certain bashful and
indescribable emotion.

The alchemist had returned to his furnace, and the young man and the
girl were as much alone as if Adam Warner had been in heaven.

"And why should the daughter forsake the sire more in a court, where
love is rare, than in the humbler home, where they may need each other
less?"

"I thank thee for the rebuke, mistress," said Alwyn, delighted with her
speech; "for I should have been sorry to see thy heart spoiled by the
vanities that kill most natures." Scarcely had he uttered these words,
than they seemed to him overbold and presuming; for his eye now took in
the great change of which Marmaduke had spoken. Sibyll's dress beseemed
the new rank which she held: the corset, fringed with gold, and made of
the finest thread, showed the exquisite contour of the throat and
neck, whose ivory it concealed. The kirtle of rich blue became the
fair complexion and dark chestnut hair; and over all she wore that
most graceful robe, called the sasquenice, of which the old French poet
sang,--

"Car nulie robe n'est si belle
A dame ne a demoiselle."

This garment, worn over the rest of the dress, had perhaps a classical
origin, and with slight variations may be seen on the Etruscan vases;
it was long and loose, of the whitest and finest linen, with hanging
sleeves, and open at the sides. But it was not the mere dress that
had embellished the young maiden's form and aspect,--it was rather an
indefinable alteration in the expression and the bearing. She looked as
if born to the airs of courts; still modest indeed, and simple, but with
a consciousness of dignity, and almost of power; and in fact the
woman had been taught the power that womanhood possesses. She had been
admired, followed, flattered; she had learned the autho