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.
“You offer to comfort and help me! Me—a perfect stranger, with a cloud of dishonor hanging over me! Oh, madam, if you knew all, you would certainly withdraw your kind offer,” she said.
“I will not withdraw it in any event. I do know all that your landlord could tell me, and that awakens my deepest sympathy for you. But I do not know all that you could tell me. Now, dear, I want you to confide in me as you could not confide either in your landlord, or even in his mother.”