“Could you not have paid her board? or lent her money?”
“Oh, Lyon! Lyon!” said Sybil, slowly shaking her head and looking up in his face with a heavenly benevolence beaming through her own. “Oh, Lyon! it was not a boarding-house she wanted, it was a refuge, a home with friends! But I am very sorry if this displeases you.”
“Dear, impetuous, self-forgetting child! I am not so impious as to find fault with you.”
“But you do not like the lady’s coming.”
“I should not like any visitor coming to stay with us and prevent our tête-à-tête,” said Lyon, gravely.
“I thought of that too, dear, and with a pang of selfish regret; for of course I would much rather that you and I should have our dear old home to ourselves, than that any stranger should share it with us. But then, oh, dearest Lyon, I reflected that we are so rich and happy in our home and our love, and she is so poor and sorrowful in her exile and desertion, that we might afford to comfort her from the abundance of our blessings,” said Sybil, earnestly.
“My angel wife! you are worthier than I, and your will shall be done,” he gravely replied.
“Not so, dear Lyon! But when you see this lady in her beauty and her sorrow, you also will admire and pity her, and you will be glad that she is coming to the refuge of our home.”
“I may be so,” replied Mr. Berners with an arch smile, “but how will your proud neighbors receive this questionable stranger?”
The stately little head was lifted in an instant, and—