This garment, worn over the rest of the dress, had perhaps a classical origin, and with slight variations may be seen on the Etruscan vases; it was long and loose, of the whitest and finest linen, with hanging sleeves, and open at the sides. But it was not the mere dress that had embellished the young maiden's form and aspect,—it was rather an indefinable alteration in the expression and the bearing. She looked as if born to the airs of courts; still modest indeed, and simple, but with a consciousness of dignity, and almost of power; and in fact the woman had been taught the power that womanhood possesses. She had been admired, followed, flattered; she had learned the authority of beauty. Her accomplishments, uncommon in that age among her sex, had aided her charm of person; her natural pride, which, though hitherto latent, was high and ardent, fed her heart with sweet hopes; a bright career seemed to extend before her; and, at peace as to her father's safety, relieved from the drudging cares of poverty, her fancy was free to follow the phantasms of sanguine youth through the airy land of dreams. And therefore it was that the maid was changed!
At the sight of the delicate beauty, the self-possessed expression, the courtly dress, the noble air of Sibyll, Nicholas Alwyn recoiled and turned pale; he no longer marvelled at her rejection of Marmaduke, and he started at the remembrance of the bold thoughts which he had dared himself to indulge.
The girl smiled at the young man's confusion.
"It is not prosperity that spoils the heart," she said touchingly, "unless it be mean indeed. Thou rememberest, Master Alwyn, that when God tried His saint, it was by adversity and affliction."
"May thy trial in these last be over," answered Alwyn; "but the humble must console their state by thinking that the great have their trials too; and, as our homely adage hath it, 'That is not always good in the maw which is sweet in the mouth.' Thou seest much of my gentle foster- brother, Mistress Sibyll?"
"But in the court dances, Master Alwyn; for most of the hours in which my lady duchess needs me not are spent here. Oh, my father hopes great things! and now at last fame dawns upon him."
"I rejoice to hear it, mistress; and so, having paid ye both my homage, I take my leave, praying that I may visit you from time to time, if it be only to consult this worshipful master touching certain improvements in the horologe, in which his mathematics can doubtless instruct me. Farewell. I have some jewels to show to the Lady of Bonville."
"The Lady of Bonville!" repeated Sibyll, changing colour; "she is a dame of notable loveliness."
"So men say,—and mated to a foolish lord; but scandal, which spares few, breathes not on her,—rare praise for a court dame. Few Houses can have the boast of Lord Warwick's,—'that all the men are without fear, and all the women without stain.'"
"It is said," observed Sibyll, looking down, "that my Lord Hastings once much affectioned the Lady Bonville. Hast thou heard such gossip?"