"Very much," answered Lyon. "Raphael, my boy, give Mrs. Berners your arm in to the dinner-table."
The lad blushingly obeyed, and they went in to dinner.
There was one little affectionate mischievous thought darted through Mr. Berners' brain; "I will show my wife that I can trust her with this pretty page who is in love with her, better than she could trust me with the beautiful widow who was not in love with me," he said smilingly to himself, as he followed them in to the dining-room.
This may be said to be the re-commencement of Sybil Berners' happy home-life. Of the awful cloud that overhung her fate, she scarcely thought at all this evening. When dinner was over she led the way into her own bright drawing-room, which had been that day "swept and garnished" for her reception. Fresh snow-white lace curtains were at the windows, contrasting finely with the warm, bright hues of the crimson satin hangings, the crimson velvet parlor set, and the crimson Brussels carpet. A brilliant sea-coal fire was glowing in the grate, and vases filled with fragrant hothouse plants stood on every white marble-top table and stand.
Like a child home for the holidays, Sybil roamed about in delight from object to object, and fondly opened her disused piano, to try if it was still in tune. She was surprised and pleased to find that its tone was perfect. She had been absent but two months or less, and she knew it, yet she felt as if two years must have elapsed since she had touched her piano. She sat down and played some of her favorite airs, and sang some of her favorite songs, to the great entertainment of Mr. Berners and Raphael.
But this evening she was too happy and too restless to keep to any one thing. So she soon left the piano, and called Raphael to follow her to a book-stand in the corner, where she showed him some fine engravings from the old masters—a volume containing master-pieces from Guido, Correggio, Leonardo, Murillo, and others. With all this wealth of art the poor child-artist was delighted.
"But here is something better still, my boy! Here is a volume of the rarest gems," she said, opening a book of Raphael's Madonnas and laying it before him.
He uttered a cry of delight, and then checked himself, blushed, and apologized.
Meanwhile Lyon Berners reclined upon the sofa. He was still weak from his accident, and from the imprudent journey that had followed it. He lay there, watching Sybil, content that she should be amused, until the wife herself suddenly lifted up the volume she had been examining with the boy, and calling Raphael to follow her, went over to her husband, and kneeling by his side, with the book resting on the edge of the sofa, she turned a page, and said:
"Look here, dear Lyon! I want you to notice this amazing resemblance," and she pointed first to an engraved head of the artist Raphael occupying the centre of the title-page, and then to the living head of the boy Raphael bending by her side.