Sylvia's Lovers

Both the hosts had followed her into the lobby to help Philip in

cloaking her, and putting on her pattens. They were full of

old-fashioned compliments and good wishes; one speech of theirs came

up to her memory in future years:-'Now, Sylvia Hepburn,' said Jeremiah, 'I've known thy husband long,

and I don't say but what thou hast done well in choosing him; but if

he ever neglects or ill-uses thee, come to me, and I'll give him a

sound lecture on his conduct. Mind, I'm thy friend from this day

forrards, and ready to take thy part against him!' Philip smiled as if the day would never come when he should neglect

or ill-use his darling; Sylvia smiled a little, without much

attending to, or caring for, the words that were detaining her,

tired as she was; John and Jeremiah chuckled over the joke; but the

words came up again in after days, as words idly spoken sometimes

do.

Before the end of that first year, Philip had learnt to be jealous

of his wife's new love for Hester. To the latter, Sylvia gave the

free confidence on many things which Philip fancied she withheld

from him. A suspicion crossed his mind, from time to time, that

Sylvia might speak of her former lover to Hester. It would be not

unnatural, he thought, if she did so, believing him to be dead; but

the idea irritated him.

He was entirely mistaken, however; Sylvia, with all her apparent

frankness, kept her deep sorrows to herself. She never mentioned her

father's name, though he was continually present to her mind. Nor

did she speak of Kinraid to human being, though, for his sake, her

voice softened when, by chance, she spoke to a passing sailor; and

for his sake her eyes lingered on such men longer than on others,

trying to discover in them something of the old familiar gait; and

partly for his dead sake, and partly because of the freedom of the

outlook and the freshness of the air, she was glad occasionally to

escape from the comfortable imprisonment of her 'parlour', and the

close streets around the market-place, and to mount the cliffs and

sit on the turf, gazing abroad over the wide still expanse of the

open sea; for, at that height, even breaking waves only looked like

broken lines of white foam on the blue watery plain.

She did not want any companion on these rambles, which had somewhat

of the delight of stolen pleasures; for all the other respectable

matrons and town-dwellers whom she knew were content to have always

a business object for their walk, or else to stop at home in their

own households; and Sylvia was rather ashamed of her own yearnings

for solitude and open air, and the sight and sound of the

mother-like sea. She used to take off her hat, and sit there, her

hands clasping her knees, the salt air lifting her bright curls,

gazing at the distant horizon over the sea, in a sad dreaminess of

thought; if she had been asked on what she meditated, she could not

have told you.