"Madame," Bevill replied, "our confidence is well established, our friendship made. The lady's name is Sylvia Thorne."
"Sylvia Thorne! Sylvia Thorne! Why, I know her. We, too, are friends, and firm ones."
"You know her? You are friends?"
"In very truth. I have been here more than once before as guest of my kinsman. And--yes, Sylvia Thorne and I are friends. Ah! what a double passport would this have been to my friendship had I but known that you were on your way to sweet Sylvia."
"She is, then, sweet? Doubtless gentle also?"
"She is both. In Sylvia Thorne, whom you say you knew once as a little child, you will find a sweet, good woman. Grave, perhaps, beyond her years--she has suffered much by the loss of both her parents--and too calm and unruffled, it may be, for one whose footsteps have but now passed over the threshold of womanhood. Sincere with those who win her regard, contemptuous of those unworthy of the good opinion of any honest man or woman; while yet placed here as she is, she possesses one gift she had far better be without."
"And that is, madame?"
"The gift of beauty; for she is beautiful, but seems to know it not. And it may be that her beauty is too cold and stately; it has not the brightness, the joyousness, that should accompany the beauty of youth. But you will see her ere long. Observe, those whom I come to dwell with for a time are at the door. Farewell--nay, au revoir only, since you will not enter. Adieu till next we meet. You know the house now; the door stands ever open to those who are my friends."
[CHAPTER XII.]
On that long quay over which the coach had passed but just now, Bevill Bracton, as he rode by its side, had observed an ancient inn, as all things were ancient in this old-world land--one that bore on its front the name, "Gouden Leeuw," and testified as to what its Walloon significance might be by having beneath it a fierce-looking gilt monster, that might be intended for a lion, as sign.