On a clear, cold December evening a month after Sydney’s arrival, the grand old castle of St. Quentin seemed to have cast off for the moment its habitual sombreness.
Sounds of talk and laughter came from the brilliantly-lit dining-room, and the great hall, though empty still, was gay with flowers—great pots of chrysanthemums and arum lilies standing against walls where more than one cannon ball was embedded.
On this night Lord St. Quentin had elected to give a dinner to his principal tenants, and afterwards to formally present Sydney to them as his heir.
It was in vain Dr. Lorry urged that excitement was bad for his patient; it was in vain Sydney begged to be excused the ordeal. The Lisles of history had been renowned for their obstinacy in the days when half
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 the Castle had been shattered by cannon, and the present head of the house was not behind his ancestors in that respect.
“The child has been brought up in a corner,” he said, “but her acknowledgment is going to be as public as I can make it. The tenantry may just as well know something of her before she comes to rule over them.”
So the preparations were made and the guests bidden.
Lady Frederica groaned a good deal over “St. Quentin’s fads,” as she called them. “If he wants to entertain, he might just as well have consulted my pleasure by giving a dinner or a dance to our own set,” she complained; “but to expect me to be enthusiastic over the coming of a lot of old farmers is a little too much!”
Sydney did not remember that St. Quentin had asked Lady Frederica to be enthusiastic, or indeed be anything except be there, but of course she did not say so.
Lord St. Quentin asked his cousin Lord Braemuir to come down to stay at the castle, and take the head of the table at the dinner.
He was a bluff, hearty-looking man, and Sydney took a fancy to him because he spoke
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 kindly of her young mother and father, and seemed to think they had been hardly treated.
“I never could see the girl was to blame,” he told St. Quentin, when they were alone together. “She was a child and poor Frank was another, and if only Gwenyth had let well alone, there would have been no harm done. But perhaps it was just as well she did interfere, for you’ve got a charming little girl for your heir, Quin, my boy. Well, how things turn out! Fancy little Miss Henderson’s child coming to be Marchioness of St. Quentin!”
The ladies dined in the library with St. Quentin that night—Lady Frederica very magnificent in green and gold, with the Verney topazes gleaming in her hair. Sydney was all in white, and wore no jewelry. Lady Frederica was rigid in her views upon the etiquette of dress for girls not yet “out.”
The girl had insensibly improved very much during the past month in style and dignity. She held herself better, and had grown to be considerably less shy. St. Quentin watched her with approval as she sat down after dinner beside Miss Osric, and began a low-toned conversation, which should not interfere with Lady Frederica’s rather high-pitched stream then flowing over him.
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She was looking very pretty too, he thought; with a colour in her small delicately-cut face and an earnest look in the great grey eyes. “Yes, Braemuir was right,” he thought to himself, “I have got a very charming heir!”
Steps were heard outside, and Lord Braemuir entered, sending his jolly voice before him. “Are you ready, Quin, my boy, and you, my dear? Yes, dinner went off splendidly, St. Quentin, and your farmers quite appreciated it, I assure you. Where is the presentation to take place? Oh, the great hall, is it? Here, shall I wheel your couch in?”
“Thanks, ring for Dickson, please,” said St. Quentin. “Will you go and bring the tenants to the hall, Braemuir, and then come back here and take in Aunt Rica. Sydney, walk beside my couch, please—don’t be frightened—nobody shall eat you!”
“I am not afraid,” said Sydney, drawing herself up, and they went into the great hall together, she walking by his side.
Lady Frederica followed, on the arm of Lord Braemuir, and Mr. Fenton, who had come down for this great occasion, gave his to Miss Osric.
All eyes were turned upon the girl as she walked slowly up the hall, her colour ............