"A silent creature, thoughtful, grave, sincere."
JEAN INGELOW.
[CHAPTER I.]
A MIDDLE-AGED YOUNG LADY.
"Sensibility, how charming!"
BURNS.
"IF only I had some one to tell me what to do!" sighed Miss Devereux, an anxious pucker wrinkling her forehead.
It was the first time in Sybella Devereux' life that she had ever had to stand alone.
The morning-room which she occupied was better fitted for summer than winter uses. Indian matting covered the floor; Indian drapery clothed the walls; light cane chairs of foreign make were scattered among tables no less fragile. This being June, a fringe of Gloire de Dijon roses peered in at the open French window. Had it been December, the morning-room would have been forsaken.
Sybella Devereux had taken one of the slight chairs, beside one of the flimsy tables. A writing-case was open, and two or three letters were outspread.
Few would have guessed her at first sight to be within a few months of forty. She had lived the sheltered life of many English daughters in easy circumstances—a life of moderate occupation, of small trouble or responsibility. Sybella had taken life as she found it. She was not a woman to carve out a career for herself in the face of circumstances. She counted herself delicate, and liked to be comfortable. If any latent force of character had existed in her originally, circumstances had tended to smother rather than to draw it out.
From babyhood she had been thought of, guarded, cared for, directed, never left to decide for herself. As an arm or leg will wither if tied up and not used, so the power of mental decision had withered in her from lack of exercise.