Sibyl felt her heart beating very fast. She had not been trained in a high school of morals. Her father was a very hard-working clergyman with a large family of eight children. Her mother was dead; her elder sisters were earning their own living. Mrs. Haddo had heard of Sibyl, and had taken her into the school on special terms, feeling sure that charity was well expended in such a case. Mr. Ray was far too busy over his numerous duties to look after Sibyl as her mother would have done had she lived. The little girl was brought up anyhow, and her new life at Haddo Court was a revelation to her in more ways than one. She was not pretty; she was not clever; she was not strong-minded; she was very easily influenced. A good girl could have done much for her--Martha had done her very best; but a bad girl could do even more. While Sibyl was dallying with temptation, thinking to herself how attractive it would be to feel such an important person as Fanny Crawford, she looked down from the height where she was standing and saw Betty Vivian walking slowly across the common. Betty was alone. Her head was slightly bent, but the rest of her young figure was bolt upright. She was going towards the spot where those sparse clumps of heather occupied their neglected position at one side of the "forest primeval." When first Sibyl saw Betty her heart gave a great throb of longing to rush to her, to fling her arms round her, to kiss her, to cling to her side. But she suppressed that impulse. She loved Betty, but she was afraid of her. Betty was the last sort of girl to put up with what she considered liberties; Sibyl was a person to whom she was utterly indifferent, and she would by no means have liked Sibyl to kiss her. From Sibyl's vantage-ground, therefore, she watched Betty, herself unseen. Then it suddenly occurred to her that she might continue to watch her, but from a more favorable point of view.