"Why!" exclaimed Sybil, laughing and pleased, "you meet me as if I had
been gone a month, instead of a morning!"
"Your absence always seems long to me, dear wife, however short it may
really be," he answered earnestly. And he spoke the truth; for
notwithstanding his admiration of Rosa, and the invidious comparison he
had just drawn between her and Sybil, in his heart of hearts he still
loved his wife truly.
She threw off her bonnet and shawl, and sat down beside him and began to
rattle away like a happy girl, telling him all the little incidents of
her morning's drive--whom she had seen, what she had purchased, and how
excited everybody was on the subject of her approaching fancy ball.
"The first one ever given in this neighborhood, you know. Lyon," she
added.
And having told him all the news, she snatched up her bonnet and shawl
and ran up-stairs to her own room, where she found her thin housekeeper
engaged in sorting out laces and snivelling.
"Why, what's the matter now, Miss Tabby?" cheerfully inquired Sybil.
"Well, then, to tell you the truth, ma'am, I am dreadfully exercised
into my own mind," answered Miss Winterose, wiping a tear from the tip
of her nose.
"What about, now?" gayly demanded Sybil, who felt not the slightest
degree of alarm on account of Miss Tabby, knowing that lady to be a
constitutional and habitual whimperer.
"Then, it's all along of the wickedness and artfulness and deceitfulness
of this here world."
"Well, never mind, Miss Tabby; you'll not have to answer for it all. But
what particular instance of wickedness frets your soul now?" laughed
Sybil.
"Why, now, there's where it is! I don't know whether I ought to tell, or
whether I ought'n to; nor whether, if I was to tell, I would be looked
upon into the light of a mischief-maker, or into the light of a true
friend!" whimpered Miss Winterose.
"I can soon settle that question of ethics for you," laughed Sybil, all
unsuspicious of what was coming.
"Do just as your conscience directs you, Miss Tabby, no matter how
people may look upon you."
"Very well, then, ma'am; for my conscience do order me to speak! Oh,
Miss Sybil! I have knowed you ever since you was a baby in my arms, and
I can't bear to have you so deceived and imposed upon by that there
treacherous, ungrateful White Cat!"
"White Cat?" echoed Sybil, in perplexity.
"Yes, Miss Sybil, that red-headed, false-hearted White Cat, as you took
into your house and home, for to beguile and corrupt your own true
husband!"
With a gasp and a suppressed cry, Sybil sank into her seat.
Miss Tabby, too full of her subject to notice Sybil's agitation,
continued: "No sooner had your carriage left the door this morning, Miss Sybil,
than that there White Cat comes tipping on her tiptoes out of her room,
in a long loose dressing-gown, with her hair all down, in a way as no
real lady would ever be seen out of her own chamber, and she tips, tips,
tips into the drawing-room, where she knows Mr. Berners is alone, and
laying on the sofa!"