admiration which justified Sibyll in her high-placed affection, she
scrupled not to encourage the blushing girl by predictions in which
she forced her own better judgment to believe. Nor, when she learned
Sibyll's descent from a family that had once ranked as high as that of
Hastings, would she allow that there was any disparity in the alliance
she foretold. But more, far more than Lady Longueville's assurances,
did the delicate and unceasing gallantries of Hastings himself flatter
the fond faith of Sibyll. True, that he spoke not actually of love,
but every look implied, every whisper seemed to betray it. And to her
he spoke as to an equal, not in birth alone, but in mind; so superior
was she in culture, in natural gifts, and, above all, in that train of
high thought and elevated sentiment, in which genius ever finds a
sympathy, to the court-flutterers of her sex, that Hastings, whether
or not he cherished a warmer feeling, might well take pleasure in her
converse, and feel the lovely infant worthy the wise man's trust. He
spoke to her without reserve of the Lady Bonville, and he spoke with
bitterness. "I loved her," he said, "as woman is rarely loved. She
deserted me for another--rather should she have gone to the convent
than the altar; and now, forsooth, she deems she hath the right to
taunt and to rate me, to dictate to me the way I should walk, and to
flaunt the honours I have won."

"May that be no sign of a yet tender interest?" said Sibyll, timidly.

The eyes of Hastings sparkled for a moment, but the gleam vanished.
"Nay, you know her not. Her heart is marble, as hard and as cold; her
very virtue but the absence of emotion,--I would say, of gentler
emotion; for, pardieu, such emotions as come from ire and pride and
scorn are the daily growth of that stern soil. Oh, happy was my
escape! Happy the desertion which my young folly deemed a curse!