Cruel as the Grave

"Now, my darling, we are long together once more, with no one to divide us!" "Thank Heaven!" breathed Sybil with all her heart; and her jealousy was lulled to rest again by the kisses that he pressed on her lips. She said to herself that all his devotion to Rosa Blondelle in the stage-coach was but the proper courtesy of a gentleman to a lady guest, who was, besides, a stranger in the country; and that she, his wife, ought to admire, rather than to blame him for it-ought to be pleased, rather than pained by it, -from "Down in the Dark Vale" The most popular American novelist of the late 19th century, Mrs. Southworth began writing to support herself and her children after her husband abandoned them, and her marvelous fiction about women who were adventurous without ever exceeding the rules of female respectability were enormously beloved. This 1871 work is the tale of bright, beautiful, and impetuous heiress Sybil Berners, whose headstrong ways and sentimental leanings may be her downfall... unless the indulgent, besotted men in her life can save her from herself. Gloriously romantic and immensely entertaining, this is 19th-century melodrama at its entertaining best. American writer EMMA DOROTHY ELIZA NEVITTE SOUTHWORTH (1819-1899), friend to Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote more than 60 novels, including The Hidden Hand (1859), The Bride's Fate (1869), The Changed Brides (1869), Ismael (1876), and numerous other books.