Down in the Dark Vale

Where rose the mountains, there for her were friends,
Where fell the valley, therein was her home;
Where the steep rock and dizzy peak ascends,
She had the passion and the power to roam.
The crag, the forest, cavern, torrent's foam,
Were unto her companions, and they spake
A natural language clearer than the tone
Of her best books, which she would oft forsake
For Nature's pages, lit by moonbeams on the lake.--BYRON.

Jealousy, once called to life in any human heart, is not easily to be
destroyed. Sybil Berners' almost unconscious jealousy suddenly called
into existence, and as suddenly soothed to sleep, was awakened again by
something that occurred just as the travellers were about to start.

It was the merest trifle, yet one of those trifles which turn the course
of fate just as surely as the little switch of the railroad controls the
direction of the train.

The travellers were just entering the stage-coach. Mr. Berners handed
in first Mrs. Blondelle, then Mrs. Berners, and then he himself entered.

"You sit down here in this right-hand corner, Lyon, dear, and I will sit
in the middle next to you, and Mrs. Blondelle shall sit in the left-hand
corner next to me," said Sybil, still standing while she pointed out
their several places on the back seat; and she spoke perhaps under the
influence of a latent jealousy, that instigated her to place herself
between her husband and her guest, for that long journey.

"No, no, my dear, not so; but if you will change places with me and take
the right-hand corner-seat, while our fair friend occupies the left-hand
one, I will sit between you two ladies, the proverbial 'thorn between
two roses,'" replied Lyon Berners, gayly and gallantly, with perhaps on
his side a latent desire to sit next the beautiful blonde, but also
quite unconscious of how these words had disappointed and wounded her
whom he would not have willingly wronged for the world.