Not possessing one of
those admirable instruments--if somebody at the West End would but set
up a stock of them for sale, what a lot of customers he'd have!--Sibylla
was content to cherish the mental view she had conjured up, and to
improve upon it. All the afternoon she kept improving upon it, until she
worked herself up to that agreeable pitch of distorted excitement when
the mind does not know what is real, and what fancy. It was a regular
April day; one of sunshine and storm; now the sun shining out bright and
clear; now, the rain pattering against the panes; and Sibylla wandered
from room to room, upstairs and down, as stormy as the weather.
_Had_ her dreams been types of fact? Upon glancing from the window,
during a sharper shower than any they had yet had, she saw her husband
coming in at the large gates, Lucy Tempest on his arm, over whom he was
holding an umbrella. They were walking slowly; conversing, as it seemed,
confidentially. It was quite enough for Mrs. Verner.
But it was a very innocent, accidental meeting, and the confidential
conversation was only about the state of poor old Matthew Frost.
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