Sibyll was to Katherine; there was more in common between her mind and
his in all things, save one. But oh, that one exception!--what a
world lies within it,--the memory of the spring of life! In fact,
though Hastings knew it not, he was in love with two objects at once;
the one, a chimera, a fancy, an ideal, an Eidolon, under the name of
Katherine; the other, youth and freshness and mind and heart and a
living shape of beauty, under the name of Sibyll. Often does this
double love happen to men; but when it does, alas for the human
object! for the shadowy and the spiritual one is immortal,--until,
indeed, it be possessed!

It might be, perhaps, with a resolute desire to conquer the new love
and confirm the old that Hastings, one morning, repaired to the house
of the Lady Bonville, for her visit to the court had expired. It was
a large mansion, without the Lud Gate.

He found the dame in a comely chamber, seated in the sole chair the
room contained, to which was attached a foot-board that served as a
dais, while around her, on low stools, sat some spinning, others
broidering--some ten or twelve young maidens of good family, sent to
receive their nurturing under the high-born Katherine, [And strange as
it may seem to modern notions, the highest lady who received such
pensioners accepted a befitting salary for their board and education.]
while two other and somewhat elder virgins sat a little apart, but
close under the eye of the lady, practising the courtly game of
"prime:" for the diversion of cards was in its zenith of fashion under
Edward IV., and even half a century later was considered one of the
essential accomplishments of a well-educated young lady. [So the
Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VIL, at the age of fourteen,
exhibits her skill, in prime or trump, to her betrothed husband, James