"Yes, indeed; he looks like a seraph. What is his name?" inquired Sybil, in a burst of admiration.
"It is Raphael."
"'Raphael!' an appropriate name. So might have looked the child-artist Raphael, in his brightest days on earth. So may seem the love-angel Raphael, to those who see him in their dreams," said Sybil, gazing, as if spell-bound, on the beauty of the boy.
"There, he has passed in. Now let us go down to breakfast, where we shall meet the little darling again. But look here! let me give you one warning; take no notice of that child in his father's presence. Captain Inconnu is intensely jealous of his beautiful boy, and visits that black passion upon the poor lad's head," said Gentiliska, as they went below.
"Jealous of a boy of fourteen? (and the lad cannot be more;) what a wretch!" cried Sybil, in honest indignation, as she followed her conductress down stairs.
Breakfast was served in the back parlor, in the same rude style as the supper of the night before had been.
As Sybil and Gentiliska entered the room, the captain left a group of men among whom he had been standing, came forward, bade the lady good-morning, took her hand and led her to a seat—not at the table, but at the table-cloth, which, lacking a board, was laid as on the evening previous, upon the bare floor. The captain seated himself beside his guest, and the other members of the band took their places at the meal.
Sybil noticed that young Raphael was among them. But Captain Inconnu vouchsafed neither word nor glance to his son, and no other one presumed to present him to the lady guest.
Yet at that breakfast Sybil made a most innocent conquest. The boy, who had seen very few young girls in his life, and had never seen so beautiful a woman as Sybil, at first sight fell purely in love with her, for the sake of whose sweet face he felt he could die a thousand deaths, without ever even dreaming of such a reward as to be permitted to kiss her hand!
What woman does not know at once when a life has been silently laid at her feet? Sybil surely knew and felt that this fair boy's heart and soul were hers for life or death. "He loved her with that love which was his doom."