"Suppose a young heiress, of the loftiest birth, of the broadest lands, of the comeliest form--suppose her wooed by a gentleman poor and stationless, but with a mighty soul, born to achieve greatness, would she lower herself by hearkening to his suit ?" "A maiden, methinks," answered Sibyll, with reluctant but charming hesitation, "cannot love truly if she love unworthily; and if she love worthily, it is not rank nor wealth she loves." "But her parents, sweet mistress, may deem differently; and should not her love refuse submission to their tyranny ?" asked Hastings.
"Nay, good my lord, nay," returned Sibyll, shaking her head with thoughtful demureness.

"Surely the wooer, if he love worthily, will not press her to the curse of a child's disobedience and a parent's wrath!" "Shrewdly answered," said the dame of Longueville.

"Then she would renounce the poor gentleman if the parent ordain her to marry a rich lord.

Ah, you hesitate, for a woman's ambition is pleased with the excuse of a child's obedience." Hastings said this so bitterly that Sibyll could not but perceive that some personal feeling gave significance to his words.

Yet how could they be applied to him,--to one now in rank and repute equal to the highest below the throne?
"If the demoiselle should so choose," said the dame of Longueville, "it seemeth to me that the rejected suitor might find it facile to disdain and to forget." Hastings made no reply; but that remarkable and deep shade of melancholy which sometimes in his gayest hours startled those who beheld it, and which had, perhaps, induced many of the prophecies that circulated as to the untimely and violent death that should close his bright career, gathered like a cloud over his brow.