Sylvia's Lovers

Sylvia was not willing to go and seek out Philip, after the manner

in which they had parted. All the despondency of her life became

present to her again as she sate down within her home. She had

forgotten it in her interest and excitement, but now it came back

again.

Still she was hungry, and youthful, and tired. She took her basin

up, and was eating her supper when she heard a cry of her baby

upstairs, and ran away to attend to it. When it had been fed and

hushed away to sleep, she went in to see her mother, attracted by

some unusual noise in her room.

She found Mrs. Robson awake, and restless, and ailing; dwelling much

on what Philip had said in his anger against Sylvia. It was really

necessary for her daughter to remain with her; so Sylvia stole out,

and went quickly down-stairs to Philip--now sitting tired and worn

out, and eating his supper with little or no appetite--and told him

she meant to pass the night with her mother.

His answer of acquiescence was so short and careless, or so it

seemed to her, that she did not tell him any more of what she had

done or seen that evening, or even dwell upon any details of her

mother's indisposition.

As soon as she had left the room, Philip set down his half-finished

basin of bread and milk, and sate long, his face hidden in his

folded arms. The wick of the candle grew long and black, and fell,

and sputtered, and guttered; he sate on, unheeding either it or the

pale gray fire that was dying out--dead at last.