Such wonders and derring-do are too solemn for laughter." "Ah," answered Sibyll, rising, "I fear they are.

How can I expect the people to be wiser than thou, or their hard natures kinder in their judgment than thy kind heart ?" Her low and melancholy voice went to the heart thus appealed to.

Marmaduke also rose, and followed her into the parlour, or withdrawing-closet, while Adam and the goldsmith continued to converse (though Alwyn's eye followed the young hostess), the former appearing perfectly unconscious of the secession of his other listeners.
But Alwyn's attention occasionally wandered, and he soon contrived to draw his host into the parlour.
When Nicholas rose, at last, to depart, he beckoned Sibyll aside.

"Fair mistress," said he, with some awkward hesitation, "forgive a plain, blunt tongue; but ye of the better birth are not always above aid, even from such as I am.

If you would sell these blazoned manuscripts, I can not only obtain you a noble purchaser in my Lord Scales, or in my Lord Hastings, an equally ripe scholar, but it may be the means of my procuring a suitable patron for your father; and, in these times, the scholar must creep under the knight's manteline." "Master Alwyn," said Sibyll, suppressing her tears, "it was for my father's sake that these labours were wrought.