through the mullioned windows, and to have spared his life as being host.

Sydney came to enjoy her lessons, as soon as she had grown used to the strange sensation of having every bit of instruction to herself, with only Miss Osric sitting by to chaperone her pupil.

She had a fresh young voice of no special power, nor was her playing in the least above the average. She longed that Dolly, who would do her teachers so much more credit, might enjoy these music lessons in her stead; but the wish was futile.

She and Miss Osric lunched at two with Lady Frederica, and, if possible, managed a brisk walk before lunch. Miss Osric was as energetic as Sydney herself, and always ready to go out, whatever the weather. Sometimes[93] they had only time for a stroll in the Park, but often extended it to the picturesque little village, where the broken-down cottages, with their moss-covered thatch and ivied walls, made Miss Osric long for the summer and time for sketching.

[93]

In the afternoon Lady Frederica generally liked a companion on her drive and took Sydney, but the girl always managed to find a few minutes to run into the library to see her cousin; who, except on his worst days, was wheeled from his bedroom to the library next door about two o’clock.

After the drive there was tea, then usually another visit to St. Quentin, followed by practice, preparation for her masters, and finishing, not infrequently, with something she and Miss Osric were reading together.

They dined at eight with Lady Frederica, and afterwards sat in one of the drawing-rooms till 9.30, when Sydney was despatched to bed.

This was rather a come-down after ten o’clock bed-time at home, but Lady Frederica was firm on that point.

“I am here to turn you into the right kind of girl for your position,” she explained to Sydney, “and one of the most important things for it is a good complexion. I went to bed[94] at seven every night of my life till I was seventeen and came out, and I don’t think there was a complexion to match mine in London. Yours will never equal it, my dear, though St. Quentin does say silly things about you. Yes, my complexion was perfect, and so was my way of entering a room (you poke, rather!) and getting in and out of a carriage; and though I never could remember why Romeo wrote Juliet, or whether Chaucer or Pope was the author of ‘In Memoriam,’ 

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