To cut for partners and to stake her crown,
This to the youthful maid preferment seem'd,
Who thought what woman she was then esteem'd;
But in few years, when she perceived indeed
The real woman to the girl succeed,
No longer tricks and honours fill'd her mind,
But other feelings, not so well defined;
She then reluctant grew, and thought it hard
To sit and ponder o'er an ugly card;
Rather the nut-tree shade the nymph preferr'd,
Pleased with the pensive gloom and evening bird;
Thither, from company retired, she took
The silent walk, or read the fav'rite book."

The interview between Sybil and the young man is conceived with real
skill and humour. The young lady receives her lover, prepared to treat
him with gentle mockery and to keep him at a convenient distance. The
young lover is not daunted, and plainly warns her against the
consequences of such levity. But as the little duel proceeds, each
gradually detects the real good that underlies the surface qualities of
the other. In spite of his formalism, Sybil discerns that her lover is
full of good sense and feeling; and he makes the same discovery with
regard to the young lady's _badinage._ And then, after a conflict of
wits that seems to terminate without any actual result, the anxious
father approaches his child with a final appeal to her sense of filial
duty:

"With anger fraught, but willing to persuade,
The wrathful father met the smiling maid:
'Sybil,' said he, 'I long, and yet I dread