[56] He got up from his knees and stared, when he saw a young lady march out of the double doors, with the evident intention of going for a walk. “Good-morning!” Sydney cried brightly, as she ran down the steps, leaving the man still staring after the slight figure and red cap. “Well, I’m blowed!” he said at last, returning to his work. The park was rather wet, but Sydney’s boots were thick, and she scorned the plain, uninteresting road along which she had driven last night. She cut across the grass at right angles, running at intervals to keep herself warm, and startling the deer not a little. Never having seen these animals outside the Zoological Gardens, she was much excited by their discovery, and made many unsuccessful attempts to coax them to her. By-and-by she came to the boundary of the park. There was no gate, but a convenient gap in the hedge; through which she climbed without difficulty. [57] [57] “Sydney’s dash forward was not a bit too soon.” (Page 59) [58] [58] As she dropped from the gap into the road beneath, she became aware that somebody a good deal smaller than herself was going to do the same thing on the other side of the road. Through a thin hedge topping a high grassy[59] bank appeared, first, two small kicking legs, and then something fat and roundabout in blue, surmounted by a crop of red curls. Sydney’s dash forward was not a bit too soon, for the creature rolled down the bank at a prodigious pace, alighting fortunately in her arms. It wriggled from her in a moment, and regained its feet. Then Sydney saw that it was a round-faced, red-haired little boy, dressed in a navy blue serge smock, just now extremely muddy. [59] He stopped to pull on the wet strapped shoe which the mud in the ditch had nearly sucked from his foot, pulled down his belt about his bunchy little petticoats, and observed affably, “Hullo, big girl!” “You have scratched your face, dear, getting through that hedge,” Sydney said, looking him over; “doesn’t it hurt you?” The small boy beamed all over in a
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