“Yes, madam,” politely replied Sybil.
“Then, dear Mr. Berners, I shall have to ask you to write a few visiting-cards for me. I have not an engraved one in the world. But you write such a beautiful hand, that your writing will look like copper-plate. You will oblige me?” she inquired, smiling, and placing a pack of blank cards before him.
“With the greatest pleasure,” answered Lyon Berners, promptly putting aside his paper.
Rosa turned to leave the room.
“Will you not remain with us?” courteously inquired Sybil.
“No, dear; much as I should like to do so,” replied Rosa.
“But why?” inquired Lyon Berners, looking disappointed.
“Oh! because I have my dress to see about. We are far from all fashionable modistes here; but I must try to do honor to madam’s masquerade for all that,” laughed Rosa, as she passed gracefully out of the room.
With a sigh that seemed to his sorrowing wife to betray his regret for the beauty’s departure, Lyon Berners drew the packet of blank cards before him, scattered them in a loose heap on his left hand, and then selecting one at a time, began to write. As he carefully wrote upon and finished each card, he as carefully laid it on his right hand, until a little heap grew there.
Sybil, who gloried in all her husband’s accomplishments, from the greatest to the least, admired very much his skill in ornamental chirography. She drew her chair closer to the table, and took up the topmost card, and began to decipher, rather than to read, the name in the beautiful old English characters, so tangled in a thicket of rose-buds and forget-me-nots as to be scarcely legible. She looked closely and more closely at the name on the card.