"Am I to be at the beck and call of that French madmizel?" she resentfully asked. "I was not engaged for that, Mrs. Tynn."

"It seems we are all to be at her beck and call, to hear her go on," was Mrs. Tynn's wrathful rejoinder. "Of course it can't be tolerated. We shall see in a day or two. Phoeby, girl, what could possess Mrs.

Verner to buy all them cart-loads of finery? She must have spent the money like water."

"So she did," acquiesced Phoeby. "She did nothing all day long but drive about from one place to another and choose pretty things. You should see the china that's coming over!"

"I wonder Mr. Lionel let her," was the thoughtlessly-spoken remark of Tynn. And she tried, when too late, to cough it down.

"He helped her, I think," answered Phoeby. "I know he bought some of that beautiful jewellery for her himself, and brought it home. I saw him kiss her, through the doorway, as he clasped that pink necklace on her neck."

"Oh, well, I don't want to hear about that rubbish," tartly rejoined Tynn. "If you take to peep through doorways, girl, you won't suit Verner's Pride."

Phoeby did not like the rebuff. She turned one way, and Mrs. Tynn went off another.

In the breakfast-room below, in her charming French morning costume, tasty and elegant, sat Sibylla Verner. With French dresses, she seemed to be acquiring French habits. Late as the hour was, the breakfast remained on the table. Sibylla might have sent the things away an hour ago; but she kept a little chocolate in her cup, and toyed with it. She had never tasted chocolate for breakfast in all her life, previous to this visit to Paris: now she protested she could take nothing else.

Possibly she may have caught the taste for it from Mademoiselle Benoite.

Her husband sat opposite to her, his chair drawn from the table, and turned to face the room. A perfectly satisfied, happy expression pervaded his face; he appeared to be fully contented with his lot and with his bride. Just now he was laughing immoderately.

Perched upon the arm of a sofa, having there come to an anchor, his legs hanging down and swaying about in their favourite fashion, was Jan Verner. Jan had come in to pay them a visit and congratulate them on their return. That is speaking somewhat figuratively, however, for Jan possessed no notion of congratulating anybody. As Lady Verner sometimes resentfully said, Jan had no more social politeness in him than a bear.

Upon entering, Sibylla asked him to take some breakfast. Breakfast!

echoed Jan, did she call that breakfast? He thought it was their lunch--it was getting on for his dinner-time. Jan was giving Lionel a history of the moonlight flitting, and of Susan Peckaby's expected expedition to New Jerusalem on a white donkey.

"It ought to have been stopped," said Lionel, when his laughter had subsided. "They are going out to misery, and to nothing else, poor deluded creatures!"

"Who was to stop it?" asked Jan.

"Some one might have told them the truth. If this Brother Jarrum represented things in rose-coloured hues, could nobody open to their view the other side of the picture? I should have endeavoured to do it, had I been here. If they chose to risk the venture after that, it would have been their own fault."

"You'd have done no good," said Jan. "Once let 'em get the Mormon fever upon 'em, and it must run its course. It's like the gold fever; nothing will convince folks they are mistaken as to that, except the going out to Australia to the diggings. That will."

A faint tinge of brighter colour rose to Sibylla's cheeks at this allusion, and Lionel knit his brow. He would have avoided for ever any chain of thought that led his memory to Frederick Massingbird: he could not bear to think that his young bride had been another's before she was his. Jan, happily ignorant, continued.

"There's Susan Peckaby. She has got it in her head that she's going straight off to Paradise, once she is in the Salt Lake City. Well, now, Lionel, if you, and all the world to help you, set yourselves on to convince her that she's mistaken, you couldn't do it. They must go out and find the level of things for themselves--there's no help for it."

"Jan, it is not likely that Susan Peckaby really expects a white donkey to be sent for her!" cried Sibylla.

"She as fully expects the white donkey, as I expect that I shall go from here presently, and drop in on Poynton, on my way home," earnestly said Jan. "He has had a kick from a horse on his shin, and a nasty place it is," added Jan in a parenthesis. "Nothing on earth would convince Susan Peckaby that the donkey's a myth, or will be a myth; and she wastes all her time looking out for it. If you were opposite their place now, you'd see her head somewhere; poked out at the door, or peeping from the upstairs window."

"I wish I could get them all back again--those who have gone from here!"

warmly spoke Lionel.

"I wish sometimes I had got four legs, that I might get over double ground, when patients are wanting me on all sides," returned Jan. "The one wish is just as possible as the other, Lionel. The lot sailed from Liverpool yesterday, in the ship _American Star_. And I'll be bound, what with the sea-sickness, and the other discomforts, they are wishing themselves out of it already! I say, Sibylla, what did you think of Paris?"

"Oh, Jan, it's enchanting! And I have brought the most charming things home. You can come upstairs and see them, if you like. Benoite is unpacking them."

"Well, I don't know," mused Jan. "I don't suppose they are what I should care to see. What are the things?"

"Dresses, and bonnets, and mantles, and lace, and coiffures," returned Sibylla. "I can't tell you half the beautiful things. One of my _cache-peignes_ is of filigrane silver-work, with drops falling from it, real diamonds."

"What d'ye call a _cache-peigne?_" asked Jan.

"Don't you know? An ornament for the hair, that you put on to hide the comb behind. Combs are coming into fashion. Will you come up and see the things, Jan?"

"Not I! What do I care for lace and bonnets?" ungallantly answered Jan.

"I didn't know but Lionel might have brought me some anatomical studies over. They'd be in my line."

Sibylla shrieked--a pretty little shriek of affectation. "Lionel, why do you let him say such things to me? He means amputated arms and legs."

"I'm sure I didn't," said Jan. "I meant models. They'd not let the other things pass the customs. Have you brought a dress a-piece for Deb and Amilly?"

"No," said Sibylla, looking up in some consternation. "I never thought about it."

"Won't they be disappointed, then! They have counted upon it, I can tell you. They can't afford to buy themselves much, you know; the doctor keeps them so short," added Jan.

"I _would_ have brought them something, if I had thought of it; I would, indeed!" exclaimed Sibylla, in an accent of contrition. "Is it not a pity, Lionel?"

"I wish you had," replied Lionel. "Can you give them nothing of what you have brought?"

"Well--I--must--consider," hesitated Sibylla, who was essentially selfish. "The things are so beautiful, so expensive; they are scarcely suited to Deborah and Amilly."

"Why not?" questioned Jan.

"You have not a bit of sense, Jan," grumbled Sibylla. "Things chosen to suit me, won't suit them."

"Why not?" repeated Jan obstinately.

"There never was any one like you, Jan, for stupidity," was Sibylla's retort. "I am young and pretty, and a bride; and they are two faded old maids."

"Dress 'em up young, and they'll look young," answered Jan, with composure. "Give 'em a bit of pleasure for once, Sibylla."

"I'll see," impatiently answered Sibylla. "Jan, how came Nancy to go off with the Mormons? Tynn says she packed up her things in secret, and started."

"How came the rest to go?" was Jan's answer. "She caught the fever too, I suppose."

"What Nancy are you talking of?" demanded Lionel. "Not Nancy from here!"

"Oh, Lionel, yes! I forgot to tell you," said Sibylla. "She is gone indeed. Mrs. Tynn is so indignant. She says the girl must be a fool!"

"Little short of it," returned Lionel. "To give up a good home here for the Salt Lake! She will repent it."

"Let 'em all alone for _that_," nodded Jan, "I'd like to pay an hour's visit to 'em, when they have been a month in the place--if they ever get to it."

"Tynn says she remembers, when that Brother Jarrum was here in the spring, that Nancy made frequent excuses for going to Deerham in the evening," resumed Sibylla.

"She thinks it must have been to frequent those meetings in Peckaby's shop."

"I thought the man, Jarrum, had gone off, leaving the mischief to die away," observed Lionel.

"So did everybody else," said Jan. "He came back the day that you were married. Nancy's betters got lured into Peckaby's, as well as Nancy," he added. "That sickly daughter at Chalk Cottage, she's gone."