"The hero of the sketch-book, and it is—what?"
"Mr. Audley Trevelyan; don't you think it so pretty?"
Constance was silent for nearly a minute. Then foreseeing much trouble and danger if this intimacy were permitted to ripen before her husband's return, and the full recognition of herself, her son and daughter, in their proper place, and in society in general—society, "that Star Chamber of the well-bred world,"—she said, with grave energy, while taking Sybil's flushed face between her soft white hands,—
"Promise to me, darling, that you will meet him no more—at least until advised by your papa."
"I give you my promise, dearest mamma."
"Remember that he is the friend, the guest, of those Trecarrels whom your papa has ever avoided for reasons best known to himself, though they seem people of the best style; and you owe this obedience to him in his absence."
"Have no fear for me, mamma; I shall ever obey you," replied Sybil, as she threw her arms round her mother's neck and kissed her to conceal the tears that were welling up in her fine dark eyes.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PIXIES' HOLE.
On the following evening Sybil had set forth on an errand of charity to one of the many poor who blessed the bounteous hand of her mother—the widow of a fisherman who had perished during the pilchard season in the past summer—and she meant to return, as she stated, by the sea-shore.