Hence, more than ever did she resolve to avoid him, and even sought to nurse herself into emotions of anger by fancying there was something that savoured of forwardness in the mode in which he had recently addressed her. The moment she reached home and tossed the reins to the groom, she hastened to the side of Constance. "Oh, mamma," she exclaimed, in a tumult of excitement, "I have discovered the name of the gentleman about whom you spoke to me lately!" "The hero of the sketch-book, and it is--what?" "Mr. Audley Trevelyan; don't you think it so pretty?" Constance was silent for nearly a minute. Then foreseeing much trouble and danger if this intimacy were permitted to ripen before her husband's return, and the full recognition of herself, her son and daughter, in their proper place, and in society in general--society, "that Star Chamber of the well-bred world,"--she said, with grave energy, while taking Sybil's flushed face between her soft white hands,-- "Promise to me, darling, that you will meet him no more--at least until advised by your papa." "I give you my promise, dearest mamma." "Remember that he is the friend, the guest, of those Trecarrels whom your papa has ever avoided for reasons best known to himself, though they seem people of the best style; and you owe this obedience to him in his absence." "Have no fear for me, mamma; I shall ever obey you," replied Sybil, as she threw her arms round her mother's neck and kissed her to conceal the tears that were welling up in her fine dark eyes. CHAPTER XII. THE PIXIES' HOLE. On the following evening Sybil had set forth on an errand of charity to one of the many poor who blessed the bounteous hand of her mother--the widow of a fisherman who had perished during the pilchard season in the past summer--and she meant to return, as she stated, by the sea-shore. Sybil had much cause for thought, and was somewhat disposed to linger on the way. The ample means enjoyed by her parents on the one hand, with the general seclusion of their lives on the other, and their studied avoidance of society when in England, had now given the girl much reason for reflection. Her papa's mysterious absence too, and her mamma's nervous anxiety about American letters, were not without singularity; and why had both so sedulously abstained from all introduction to the family of the Trecarrels, who were greatly esteemed in the neighbourhood, and who were undoubtedly people of the best style? By the system of which this seemed merely a portion, she was even now debarred from having properly presented to her this Mr. Audley Trevelyan, who seemed so well disposed to admire--perhaps, to love her.