Mr. Farrington did not persist in compliments which were evidently received with as much shy reluctance as conscious pleasure; but changing the conversation, first discussed with her the details of the accident, listening with extreme interest to Sybil’s enthusiastic gratitude to Captain Hepburn and Mr. Huyton, and then led her on, how she hardly knew, to give a long detail of their usual mode of life; their quiet habits, their father’s state of health; followed by glowing descriptions of the lovely forest scenery, through which they were wont to roam, the quaint manners of the woodmen, the vagrant ways of the gipsies, and a hundred other particulars, which Sybil detailed with a poetic feeling for the romance of their situation peculiarly attractive to him. Her ardent affection and admiration for her half-sister, convinced Mr. Farrington that Sybil herself must be equally amiable, and perhaps equally clever to appreciate her so entirely; and altogether he was so much interested in his companion, as to feel disinclined to quit her again during the rest of the evening. Sybil was too tired, from excitement and exertion, to be disposed to do any thing but sit still beside Mrs. Fielding, except at the intervals when she stole up stairs to learn how Hilary slept; and her spirits being naturally depressed by what had already passed, and anxiety for the future, she was just in that state of mind which made her communicative of her hopes and fears, inclined to take retrospective views of bygone happiness, and thankful to hear cheerful anticipations for the morrow. As to Maurice, after he had made the arrangements before recorded, feeling easier for his sisters at “the Ferns,” and depending entirely on his friend’s direction to give as little pain as possible to his father in making known the accident, he suddenly returned to thoughts of his own affairs, that is to say, to recollections of Dora, whom he had left with her sister, and wonder what they had done, as well as what they would think of his conduct. Isabel he saw was with her aunt, Lady Margaret, and her party, which was tolerably numerous, but Dora herself was invisible. He went up to Miss Barham, and apologized for his conduct, in quitting them so abruptly in the boat; an apology which she declared totally unnecessary, as of course Hilary must be his first object; but in answer to his inquiries after her sister, she could only tell him, that Dora had gone in doors to rest, as she said she had a head-ache, and the band made it worse. As soon as he could, Maurice went to the house to look for her, but was unsuccessful in his search through all the public rooms. Vexed and disappointed, he strolled out again, but on the opposite side to that on which the pavilion stood, and wandered away by himself, into a small thicket of laurel and other evergreens, overhung by some remarkably fine old hawthorns, whose long sprays, wreathed with snowy blossoms, shed around their rich and enervating perfume.