Cruel As The Grave

This state of affairs exasperated the fiery and self-willed little

beauty almost to phrensy. She had never in her life been contradicted or

opposed. No desire of her heart had ever been left for a moment

unsatisfied. She never knew until now the meaning of suspense or

disappointment. And now here was a man whom she wildly loved, and who

worshipped her, but who, from some delicate pride in his poverty,

would not speak, while she, of course, could not.

Yet Sybil Berners was no weak "Viola," who would "Let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek, and pine in thought."

She was rather a strong "Helena," who would dare all and bear all to

gain her lover.

Sybil did all that a young lady of her rank could do in the premises.

She made her doting father give dinner parties and invite her lover to

them. But the briefless young lawyer in the napless hat and thread-bare

coat never accepted one of these invitations, for the very simple

reason that he had no evening dress in which to appear.

Under these circumstances, where any other young girl might have grown

languid and sorrowful, Sybil became excitable and violent. She had

always had the fiery temper of her race, but it had very seldom been

kindled by a breath of provocation. Now, however, it frequently broke

out without the slightest apparent cause. No one in the house could

account for this accession of ill-temper--not her anxious father, nor

Miss Tabitha Winterose, the housekeeper, not Joseph Joy, the house

steward, nor any of the maids or men-servants under them.

"She's possessed of the devil," said Miss Winterose, to her confidant,

the house steward.

"That's nothing new. All the Berners is possessed of that possession.

It's entailed family property, and can't be got rid of," grimly

responded Joe.

"Something has crossed her; something has crossed her very much,"

muttered her old father to himself, as he sat alone in his arm-chair in

the warm chimney-corner of his favorite sitting-room.

Yes, indeed, everything crossed her. She was unhappy for the first time

in her life, and she thought it was clearly the duty of her father or

some other one of her slaves to make her happy. She was kept waiting,

and it was everybody's fault, and everybody should be made to suffer for

it. It was no use to reason with Sybil Berners. One might as well have

reasoned with a conflagration.

It was about this time, too, that her aged father began to feel symptoms

that warned him of the approach of that sudden death by congestion of

the brain, which had terminated the existence of so many of his

ancestors.

More than ever he desired to see his motherless daughter well married

before he should be called away from her. So, one evening, he sent for

Sybil to come into his sitting-room, and when she obeyed his summons,

and came and sat down on a low ottoman beside his arm-chair, he said,

laying his hand lovingly on her black, curly head: "My darling, I am very old, and may be taken from you any day, any hour,

and I would like to see you well married before I go."