They contained the tidings that Frederick Massingbird
had died of fever, and that Sibylla was anxious to come home again.
"Who is Captain Cannonby?" asked Lionel of Jan.
"Have you forgotten the name?" returned Jan. "That friend of Fred
Massingbird's who sold out, and was knocking about London; Fred went up
once or twice to see him. He went to the diggings last autumn, and it
seems Fred and Sibylla lighted on him at Melbourne. He had laid poor
Fred in the grave the day before he wrote, he says."
"I can scarcely believe it all now, Jan," said Lionel. "What a change!"
"Ay. You won't believe it for a day or two. I say, Lionel, Uncle Stephen
need not have left Verner's Pride to the Massingbirds; they have not
lived to enjoy it. Neither need there have been all that bother about
the codicil. I know what."
"What?" asked Lionel, looking at him; for Jan spoke significantly.
"That Madam Sibylla would give her two ears now to have married you,
instead of Fred Massingbird."
Lionel's face flushed, and he replied coldly, hauteur in his tone,
"Nonsense, Jan! you are speaking most unwarrantably.
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