had been reinstalled for the first time since the night she came.

Dr. Lorry was an elderly man, very kind-hearted and a teller of good stories by the yard. He held out his hand to Sydney with a smile.

“Come in and see your cousin for a little while this afternoon, my dear young lady,” he suggested. “I think a visitor would do him good to-day.”

Sydney followed him obediently into the library—a handsome but rather sombre room, where what little of the wall could be seen for well-filled book-cases was covered by Spanish leather, and the furniture wore the same sober tint of dark brown.

St. Quentin’s couch was drawn up near the fire: he looked considerably more ill now she saw him in daylight. His face was very worn and his eyes sunken.

“Well, Lord St. Quentin, I’ve brought you a visitor, you see,” the doctor said, drawing[70] the girl forward. “She is not to chatter you to death—are you a great talker, Miss Lisle?—but just to quietly amuse you. Good-bye, I’ll look in again to-night.”

[70]

And he went out quietly, with an encouraging nod of his head to Sydney.

“Sit down,” said her cousin. “There, by the fire; you look cold. You needn’t stay above five minutes if you find it bores you.”

“But I want to stay,” Sydney said. Her glance was the direct one of a child. “I have been wanting to see you to say thank you for all those lovely things you have given me—in my rooms, you know. And Lady Frederica says I am to have a horse, and riding lessons too. It is awfully good of you!”

She pulled up in confusion at the “awfully” which had escaped her, but her cousin did not seem to notice it.

“Oh, you like the notion of a horse; that’s right,” he said. “I wrote up to Braemuir, who’s a pretty fair judge, to choose one suited for a lady, and to send it down. You ought to look rather well on horseback.”

He looked critically at the slight figure dressed in soft green, touched with creamy lace, before him. “I’m glad Aunt Rica didn’t make you put your hair up yet,” he said.

[71]

[71]

“At home they said I must put it up on my eighteenth birthday,” Sydney volunteered.

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