"You will have every attendance provided for you, Sibylla, my mother said. But I cannot take Benoite; neither would Lady Verner admit her."

John Massingbird had agreed to keep on most of the old servants. The superfluous ones, those who had been engaged when Verner's Pride grew gay, Lionel found the means of discharging; paying them as he had paid Benoite.

Heavy work for him, that day! the breaking up of his home, the turning forth to the world. And, as if his heart were not sufficiently heavy, he had the trouble of Sibylla. The arrangements had been three or four days in process. It had taken that time to pack and settle things, since he first spoke to Lady Verner. There were various personal trifles of his and Sibylla's to be singled out and separated from what was now John Massingbird's. But all was done at last, and they were ready to depart.

Lionel went to John Massingbird.

"You will allow me to order the carriage for Sibylla? She will like it better than a hired one."

"Certainly," replied John, with much graciousness. "But what's the good of leaving before dinner?"

"My mother is expecting us," simply answered Lionel.

Just the same innate refinement of feeling which had characterised him in the old days. It so happened that Lionel had never bought a carriage since he came into Verner's Pride. Stephen Verner had been prodigal in his number of carriages, although the carriages had a sinecure of it, and Lionel had found no occasion to purchase. Of course they belonged to John Massingbird; everything else belonged to him. He, for the last time, ordered the close carriage for his wife. His carriage, it might surely be said, more than John Massingbird's. Lionel did not deem it so, and asked permission ere he gave the order.

Sibylla had never seen her husband quietly resolute in opposing her whims, as he had been with regard to Benoite. She scarcely knew what to make of it; but she had deemed it well to dry her tears, and withdraw her opposition. She came down dressed at the time of departure, and looked about for John Massingbird. That gentleman was in the study. Its large desk, a whole mass of papers crowded above it and underneath it, pushed into the remotest corner. Lionel had left things connected with the estate as straight as he could. He wished to explain affairs to John Massingbird, and hand over documents and all else in due form, but he was not allowed. Business and John had never agreed. John was sitting now before the window, his elbows on the sill, a rough cap on his head, and a short clay pipe in his mouth. Lionel glanced with dismay at the confusion reigning amid the papers.

"Fare you well, John Massingbird," said Sibylla.

"Going?" said John, coolly turning round. "Good-day."

"And let me tell you, John Massingbird," continued Sibylla, "that if ever you had got turned out of your home as you have turned us, you would know what it was."

"Bless you! I've never had anything of my own to be turned out of, except a tent," said John, with a laugh.

"It is to be hoped that you may, then, some time, and that you will be turned out of it! That's my best wish for you, John Massingbird."

"I'd recommend you to be polite, young lady," returned John good-humouredly. "If I sue your husband for back rents, you'd not be quite so independent, I calculate."

"Back rents!" repeated she.

"Back rents," assented John. "But we'll leave that discussion to another time. Don't you be saucy, Sibylla."

"John," said Lionel, pointing to the papers, "are you aware that some valuable leases and other agreements are amongst those papers? You might get into inextricable confusion with your tenants, were you to mislay, or lose them."

"They are safe enough," said careless John, taking his pipe from his mouth to speak.

"I wish you had allowed me to put things in order for you. You will be wanting me to do it later."

"Not a bit of it," said John Massingbird. "I am not going to upset my equanimity with leases, and bothers of that sort. Good-bye, old fellow.

Lionel!"

Lionel turned round. He had been going out.

"We part friends, don't we?"

"I can answer for myself," said Lionel, a frank smile rising to his lips. "It would be unjust to blame you for taking what you have a right to take."

"All right. Then, Lionel, you'll come and see me here?"

"Sometimes. Yes."

They went out to the carriage, Lionel conducting his wife, and John in attendance, smoking his short pipe. The handsome carriage, with its coat of ultra-marine, its rich white lining, its silver mountings, and its arms on the panels. The Verner arms. Would John paint them out? Likely not. One badge on the panels of his carriages was as good to John Massingbird as another. He must have gone to the Herald's College had he wanted to set up arms on his own account.

And that's how Lionel and his wife went out of Verner's Pride. It seemed as if Deerham pavement and Deerham windows were lined on purpose to watch the exodus. The time of their departure had got wind.

"I have done a job that goes again the grain, sir," said Wigham to his late master, when the carriage had deposited its freight at Deerham Court, and was about to go back again. "I never thought, sir, to drive you out of Verner's Pride for the last time."

"I suppose not, Wigham. I thought it as little as you."

"You'll not forget, sir, that I should be glad to serve you, should you ever have room for me. I'd rather live with you, sir, than with anybody else in the world."

"Thank you, Wigham. I fear that time will be very far off."

"Or, if my lady should be changing her coachman, sir, perhaps she'd think of me. It don't seem nateral to me, sir, to drive anybody but a Verner. Next to yourself, sir, I'd be proud to serve her ladyship."

Lionel, in his private opinion, believed that Lady Verner would soon be compelled to part with her own coachman, to lay down her carriage.

Failing the income she had derived from his revenues, in addition to her own, he did not see how she was to keep up many of her present expenses.

He said farewell to Wigham and entered the Court.

Decima had hastened forward to welcome Sibylla. Decima was one who, in her quiet way, was always trying to make the best of surrounding circumstances--not for herself, but for others. Let things be ever so dark, she would contrive to extract out of them some little ray of brightness. Opposite as they were in person, in disposition she and Jan were true brother and sister. She came forward to the door, a glad smile upon her face, and dressed rather more than usual. It was one of her ways, the unwonted dress, of showing welcome and consideration to Sibylla.

"You are late, Mrs. Verner," she said, taking her cordially by the hand.

"We have been expecting you some time. Catherine! Therese, see to these packages."

Lady Verner had actually come out also. She was too essentially the lady to show anything but strict courtesy to Sibylla, now that she was about to become an inmate under her roof. What the effort cost her, she best knew. It was no light one; and Lionel felt that it was not. She stood in the hall, just outside the door of the ante-room, and took Sibylla's hand as she approached.

"I am happy to see you, Mrs. Verner," she said, with stately courtesy.

"I hope you will make yourself at home."

They all went together into the drawing-room, in a crowd, as it were.

Lucy was there, dressed also. She came up with a smile on her young and charming face, and welcomed Sibylla.

"It is nearly dinner-time," said Decima to Sibylla. "Will you come with me upstairs, and I will show you the arrangements for your rooms.

Lionel, will you come?"

She led the way upstairs to the pretty sitting-room with its blue-and white furniture, hitherto called "Miss Decima's room"; the one that Lionel had sat in when he was growing convalescent.

"Mamma thought you would like a private sitting-room to retire to when you felt disposed," said Decima. "We are only sorry it is not larger.

This will be exclusively yours."

"It is small," was the not very gracious reply of Sibylla.

"And it is turning you out of it, Decima!" added Lionel.

"I did not use it much," she answered, proceeding to another room on the same floor. "This is your bedroom, and this the dressing-room," she added, entering a spacious apartment and throwing open the door of a smaller one which led out of it. "We hope that you will find everything comfortable. And the luggage that you don't require to use can be carried upstairs."

Lionel had been looking round, somewhat puzzled. "Decima! was not this Lucy's room?"