over when Sydney came running out into the hall to welcome her. “You must be cold!” the girl cried. “Would you like to come straight to your room and take your hat off before tea? Let me carry your umbrella. Be careful how you walk; the floors are very slippery.” “It is lovely—just like a picture,” said Miss Osric, beginning suddenly to feel less homesick. There was something very winning about Sydney’s tone. The room where the new arrival was to sleep bore traces also of the same care for her comfort. A bright fire burnt in the grate,[89] a vase of hot-house flowers was on the writing-table, the pictures from Dacreshaw looked charming on the walls, and a little book-case was filled with a selection of Sydney’s best-loved books. [89] “What a charming room!” the young governess exclaimed, and Sydney, colouring a little, murmured she “was glad Miss Osric liked it.” She stayed with her governess while she took off coat, hat, and fur, and then brought her to the morning-room, where the shaded lamp shed a delicate rose glow over everything and the little tea-table was drawn up to the fire. “I am so very glad you have come,” said Sydney, as she poured out tea and handed muffins, and Miss Osric began to realise that the duty she had set herself need not necessarily prove a hard one. “Well, do you like the mentor?” asked St. Quentin, as Sydney came into the library to wish him good-night. “Are you going to be quite happy now you have another girl to play with?” And Sydney, meeting the real anxiety in his eyes, said “Yes.” “But she is still hankering after those confounded Chichesters!” her cousin said to[90] himself, when the girl had left him, in which conclusion he was not far wrong. [90] With the coming of Miss Osric, the “do as you please” system ceased. Lady Frederica might be lax as regarded solid education. “There’s no need whatsoever to behave as though you are to be a governess, my dear,” she said to Sydney, but she was horrified by the girl’s lack of accomplishments. “The one and only thing the child can do is to look pretty,” his aunt complained to St. Quentin, “and beauty without style is very little good. Of course, we must be
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