Even the long, shrouding mantle she wore could not disguise the exquisite symmetry of her graceful form, and the thick brown veil could not dim the luster of her flashing Assyrian eyes.  She smiled back, before flitting away, at the dark, bright, sparkling face her mirror showed her.

“You are a very pretty person, my dear Miss Silver,” she said—­“prettier even than my lady herself, though I say it.  Worlds have been lost for less handsome faces than this in the days gone by, and Mr. Parmalee will have every reason to be proud of his wife—­when he gets her.”

She ran lightly down-stairs, a sarcastic smile still on her lips.  In the lower hall stood Mr. Edwards, the valet, disconsolately gazing at the threatening prospect.  He turned around, and his dull eyes lighted up at sight of this darkling vision of beauty—­for Mr. Parmalee was by no means the only gentleman with the good taste to admire handsome Sybilla.

“Going hout, Miss Silver!” Mr. Edwards asked.  “Huncommon urgent your business must be to take you from ’ome such a hevening as this.  ’Ow’s my lady?”

“My lady is not at all well, Mr. Edwards,” answered Sybilla.  “Sir Everard was obliged to go alone to his mother’s, my lady’s headache is so intense.  Claudine is with her, I believe.  We are going to have a storm, are we not?  I shall be obliged to hurry back.”

She flitted away as she spoke, drawing down her veil, and disappearing while yet Mr. Edwards was trying to make a languid proffer of his services as escort.  He lounged easily up against the window, gazing with calm admiration after her.

“An huncommon ’andsome and lady-looking young pusson that,” reflected Sir Everard’s gentleman.  “I shouldn’t mind hasking her to be my missus one of these days.  That face of hers and them dashing ways would take helegantly behind the bar of a public.”

Sybilla sped on her way down the village to the Blue Bell.  Just before she reached the inn she encountered Mr. Parmalee himself, taking a constitutional, a cigar in his mouth, and his hands deep in his trousers pockets.  He met and greeted his fair betrothed with natural phlegm.

“How do, Sybilla?” nodding.  “I kind of thought you’d be after me, and so I stepped out.  You’ve been and delivered that there little message of mine, I suppose?”

“Yes,” said Sybilla; “and she will meet you to-night in the Beech Walk, and hear what you have got to say.”

“The deuce she will!” said the artist; “and have her fire-eating husband catch us and set the flunkies at me.  Not if I know myself.  If my lady wants to hear what I’ve got to say, let my lady come to me.”

“She never will,” responded Sybilla.  “You don’t know her.  Don’t be an idiot, George—­do as she requests.  Meet her to-night in the Beech Walk.”

“And have the baronet come upon us in the middle of our confab!  Look here, Sybilla, I ain’t a cowardly feller, you know, in the main; but, by George! it ain’t pleasant to be horsewhipped by an outrageous young baronet or kicked from the gates by his under-strappers.”