that, I can tell him!)”——

“Oh, Cousin St. Quentin!” Sydney cried, springing to her feet, “is it about my class in the Sunday School? I told Mr. Seaton[73] I should like to take one. You will let me, won’t you?”

[73]

“Nonsense! You know nothing about it!” he assured her. “You wouldn’t like it, and I don’t choose you to be always after parsons. Sit down there at the writing-table—you’ll find pens and paper—and decline his offer, please!”

“But I promised that I would, Cousin St. Quentin!”

“Well, now you find you can’t! Write—‘Dear Sir.’”

Dear Sir.

Sydney wrote obediently, but with rebellion in her heart.

“I regret to find myself unable to take a class in your Sunday School,” dictated Lord St. Quentin. “Yours faithfully, Sydney Lisle.”

Sydney Lisle

But Sydney paused before the “yours faithfully” and faced round with troubled eyes.

“He was very kind to me, and that sounds rather rude, doesn’t it? Mayn’t I just put something else before the signature, for politeness?”

“Oh, say your brute of a cousin won’t allow you to do anything you want,” the marquess suggested, with a rather mocking smile.

Sydney reddened, and, without remark, finished the letter that he had dictated. Then she directed the envelope to “The Rev. Paul[74] Seaton,” and, rising, put it in her cousin’s hand. “I couldn’t say a thing like that, you know,” she said, and he noticed that the childish figure had a dignity of its own. “Shall I ring for one of the footmen to take it to the Vicarage?” she added.

[74]

“I will,” said her cousin rather sharply, reaching out his arm. His couch stood rather farther off from the bell than usual, and he turned a little on his side in the attempt to reach it. The next moment Sydney saw him fall back with a stifled exclamation of suffering, while his face grew ashen and his brows contracted. She sprang forward. “Ring twice for Dickson,” he gasped, “and go!”

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