And while they were bowing together, Sybil was watching mischievously to see what effect the dazzling beauty of Rosa Blondelle would have upon Lyon Berners. She saw it! After bowing, they lifted their heads and looked at each other--he, at first, with the courtesy of a host--but she with a radiant and enchanting smile. Sybil was prepared to see Lyon's surprise at the first view of this peerless creature; but she was by no means prepared to witness the involuntary gaze of intense and breathless admiration and wonder that he fixed for a moment on her beautiful face. That gaze said as eloquently as words could have spoken: "This is the most wondrous, perfect creature that the world ever saw! This is the master-piece of nature." With the sunlight of her smile still shining on him, Rosa held out her hand, and said in the sweetest tones: "Sir, I have no words good enough to tell you how deeply I feel your kindness and that of your dear wife to me." "Dear lady, Mrs. Berners and myself do but gratify our own tastes in _trying_ to serve you; for it will be a great happiness to us if we succeed in doing so," replied Lyon Berners, with a look and tone that proved his perfect sincerity and earnestness. As thus they smiled and glanced, and spoke to each other, Sybil also glanced from the one to the other; a sudden pang shot through her heart, exciting a nameless dread in her mind. _"Even so quickly may one catch the plague!"_ "Let me lead you to the table," said Mr. Berners, offering his arm to Mrs. Blondelle, and conducting her to her place. Above all, Sybil was a lady; for she was a Berners. So, with this strange wound in her heart, this vague warning in her mind, she took her seat at the head of her table and did its honors with her usual courtesy and grace. Mr. Berners seconded his wife in all hospitable attentions to their beautiful young guest. While they were all still seated at the table, a groom rapped at the door and reported the stage-coach ready. They all arose in a hurry, and began to make the last hasty preparations for departure. Mrs. Blondelle hurried into her own room, to have her luggage taken down stairs to be put on the coach, and also to summon her nurse with the child. When Sybil Berners found herself for a moment alone with her husband, she laid her hand upon his coat sleeve to stay him, in his haste, and she inquired: "What do you think of her now?" "I think, my darling Sybil, that you were right in your judgment of this lady. And I agree with you perfectly. I think, my only love, that in what you have done for this stranger, you have acted not only with the goodness, but with the wisdom of an angel," replied Lyon Berners, snatching her suddenly to his heart, and holding her closely there while he pressed kiss after kiss upon her crimson lip; and murmured: "I must steal a kiss from these sweet lips when and wherever I can, my own one, since we are not to be much alone together now."