In another minute the landlord re-entered the room.

"Mrs. Blondelle's thanks and compliments, and she will be very grateful

for Mrs. Berners' visit, as soon as Mrs. Berners pleases to come," was

the message that Mr. Judson brought.

Sybil arose with a smile, kissed her hand playfully to her husband, and

passed out of the room.

The landlord went before her, rapped at the opposite door, then opened

it, announced the visitor, and closed it behind her.

Sybil advanced a step into the stranger's apartment, and then paused in

involuntary admiration.

She had heard and read of celebrated beauties, whose charms had

conquered the wisest statesmen and the bravest warriors, who had

governed monarchs and ministers, and raised or ruined kingdoms and

empires. And often in poetic fancy she had tried to figure to herself

one of these fairy forms and faces. But never, in her most romantic

moods, had she imagined a creature so perfectly beautiful as this one

that she saw before her.

The stranger had a form of the just medium size, and of the most perfect

proportions; a head of stately grace; features small, delicate, and

clearly cut; a complexion at once fair and rosy, like the inside of an

apple blossom; lips like opening rose-buds; eyes of dark azure blue,

fringed with long dark eye-lashes, and over-arched by slender, dark

eyebrows; and hair of a pale, glistening, golden hue that fell in soft,

bright ringlets, like a halo around her angelic face. She wore a robe of

soft, pale, blue silk, that opened over a white silk skirt.

She arose with an exquisite grace to welcome her visitor.

"It is very good of you, madam, to come to see me in my misery," she

murmured, in a sweet, pathetic tone that went to her visitor's heart, as

she sat a chair, and, by a graceful gesture invited her to be seated.

Sybil was herself impulsive and confiding, as well as romantic and

generous. She immediately drew her chair up to the side of the strange

lady, took her hand affectionately, and tried to look up in her eyes, as

she said: "We are personal strangers to each other; but we are the children of one

Father, and sisters who should care for each other."

"Ah! who would care to claim sisterhood with such a wretch as I am?"

sighed the unhappy young creature.

"I would; but you must not call yourself ill-names. Misfortunes are

not sins. I came here to comfort and help you--to comfort and help you

not in words merely, but in deeds; and I have both the power and the

will to do it, if you will please to let me try," said Sybil, gently.

The young creature looked up, her lovely, tearful, blue eyes expanded

with astonishment.




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