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Had Sibylla possessed one of Sam Weller's patent self-acting microscopes, able to afford a view through space and stairs and deal doors, she might have seen Lionel seated alone in the study at Verner's Pride, amidst his leases and papers; and Lucy in Clay Lane, paying visits with Decima from cottage to cottage.
Lucy leaned against the window-frame but a few paces from him, her large soft eyes, in their earnest sympathy, lifted to his. He positively shrank from them. "What's Sibylla to me?" he asked. "She is Mrs. Frederick Massingbird." Lucy stood in penitence. "Do not be angry with me," she timidly cried. "I ought not to have said it to you, perhaps. I see it always."
To the best of Lionel's recollection, Sibylla had said Captain Cannonby buried her husband; but it was a point into which Lionel had never minutely inquired. Allow that Jan's suggestion was correct that he did not die where had he been since? What had prevented him from joining or seeking his wife? What prevented him doing it now?
That's my best wish for you, John Massingbird." "I'd recommend you to be polite, young lady," returned John good-humouredly. "If I sue your husband for back rents, you'd not be quite so independent, I calculate." "Back rents!" repeated she. "Back rents," assented John. "But we'll leave that discussion to another time. Don't you be saucy, Sibylla."
We shall be together all the same, Lionel." "My little wife," he said, "if you cared for me as I care for you, you would not feel the want of visitors just now." And there was no sophistry in this speech. He had come to the conviction that Lucy ought to have been his wife, but he did care for Sibylla very much.
She proved an apt pupil; and though for the first ten minutes or so the course of the ship was a trifle erratic, and steering in a straight line proved to be not quite so simple and easy a matter as she had deemed it, Miss Sibylla soon caught the knack, and at the end of half an hour the Flying Cloud was making as straight a wake again as though the best helmsman in the ship had her in hand.
Four years later the third sister, Magdalen, espoused the Duke John, Count-Palatine of Deux-Ponts; who, like Neuburg, made resignation of rights of succession in favour of the descendants of the Brandenburg marriage. The marriage of the youngest sister, Sibylla, with the Margrave of Burgau has been already mentioned.
A bitter return for their loving welcome. Perhaps they were looking older, but he need not have said it so point blank, and before Jan. They turned crimson, poor ladies, and bent to sip their tea, and tried to turn the words off with a laugh, and did not know where to look. In true innate delicacy of feeling, Dr. West and his daughter, Sibylla, rivalled each other.
"There's nothing the matter with me, papa; only Lionel makes a fuss." "Nay, Sibylla," interposed Lionel good-humouredly, "I leave that to you and Jan." "You would like to make papa believe you don't make a fuss!" she cried, in a most resentful tone; "when you know, not two days ago, you wanted to prevent my going to the party at Mrs. Bitterworth's!" "I plead guilty to that," said Lionel.
Verner," she said, with stately courtesy. "I hope you will make yourself at home." They all went together into the drawing-room, in a crowd, as it were. Lucy was there, dressed also. She came up with a smile on her young and charming face, and welcomed Sibylla. "It is nearly dinner-time," said Decima to Sibylla. "Will you come with me upstairs, and I will show you the arrangements for your rooms.
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