The two gentlemen got out and assisted their companions to alight.
As they were about to enter the court-house, Sybil lifted her hand to draw her gray veil before her face; but Beatrix stayed her.
"Don't do it, my dear Sybil. You have no reason to veil your face, or bend your head, or even lower your eyes, before the gaze of any one alive!" she said, proudly, for her friend.
Sybil felt the force of these words, and indeed her own pride seconded their advice.
"I will take you first to my room, where your counsel are waiting to speak with you," said old Mr. Fortescue, drawing Sybil's hand through his arm, and leading her, followed by her husband and her friend, into the sheriff's office.
There they found Mr. Sheridan standing at a long table covered with green baize and laden with papers.
With him was a gentleman whose grandeur and beauty of person and manner must have deeply impressed any beholder, under any circumstances. "The form of Apollo and the front of Jove," had been said of him; and if it had been added that he possessed the intellectual power of a Cicero, and shared the divine spirit of Christ, it would have been equally true.
"Mr. Worth, late of the Washington Bar, now admitted to practice here for your benefit, Mrs. Berners," said Mr. Sheridan, presenting his colleague, after he himself had greeted the party.
Sybil lifted her glance to meet the gaze of the pure, sweet, strong spirit that looked forth on her from Ishmael Worth's beautiful eyes.
Sybil Berners might have been presented to half the weak-minded kings and vain queens on their mouldering old European thrones, without the slightest trepidation; but before this glorious son of the soil, this self-made man of the people, this magnate of the American Bar, this monarch of noble Nature's crowning, this magnificent Ishmael Worth, her spirit bowed in sincere homage, and she lowered her eyes and courtsied deeply, before she offered him her hand.