But a short time before, and their worldly prospects had all been so different--so brilliant and happy. Now all was dark indeed! When she thought over all the baronial splendours of Rhoscadzhel, and the many mementoes of her husband which must be there, something of hatred for the invaders of her children's patrimony and her own marital rights began to mingle with her dull despair of ever proving that she had the latter; and with all her constitutional gentleness, when she recalled the glance bestowed upon her by Mr. Trevelyan on quitting the library, and the insinuations uttered by Downie against her, in presence of General Trecarrel, too, her blood boiled up within her. "Oh, Sybil!" she exclaimed one day, after sitting long buried in thought, "some author says, 'there are wild beasts in the human race;' and truly your uncle Downie is one of these. Can it be possible that they had the same parents--he and your frank, generous, and open-hearted papa?--that they share the same blood, were nursed at the same breast, and nestled together, as I have heard, in the same little cot?" Sybil was silent; she had, in this view of the matter, but one secret and reclaiming thought. Downie was Audley's father, and she would be merciful. But it was when inspired by one of those gusts of indignation that Constance received, perhaps unfortunately, a visitor--an attorney from a neighbouring town--who stated that he had heard her strange and painful story, and had come to make a "friendly" offer of his legal services. Now Mr. Sharkley--for such was his name--was exactly, in many respects, what Downie, in his rage, called him, and was an excellent specimen of perhaps the most dangerous character in society--a needy and unscrupulous lawyer. He was attired in rusty black garments, that seemed to have been made for a much taller man. The collar of his swallow-tailed coat rose above the nape of his neck, while the cuffs nearly reached to the points of his fingers, and the legs of his trousers flapped loosely over his instep. He had a low projecting forehead and keen eyes, the expression of which varied only between intense cunning and the lowest suspicion. His ears were enormous, set high upon his head; and the right one, from being long used as a pen-holder, projected from his skull more than the left. His features would have shocked Lavater, while Gall and Spurzheim would have augured the worst of his character by the development of his head.