“What a lot of times I seem to have said ‘Merry Christmas’ this afternoon!” Sydney remarked as she and Miss Osric went round the village in Sydney’s little pony carriage with the pair of lovely little bay ponies she so much enjoyed driving. “And the sad thing is, that nobody here seems to feel particularly happy,” she went on. “Mrs. Andrews, to whom I took that crossover just now, said—‘It was hard enough to feel joyful when her man was bent double with rheumatism from the dampness of his cottage!’ Miss Osric, are the cottages in very bad repair here? Lord Braemuir seemed to think so, and so do the people who live in them. But when I asked Lady Frederica she said—‘Poor people always grumbled; if it wasn’t one thing, it was sure to be another!’ What do you think?”
Miss Osric hesitated for a little while before replying.
“Well, Sydney,” she said at length, “I don’t
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 know whether I ought to tell you this, but it seems to me right you should know something of the cottages on the estate. It will be your business to know by-and-by. You know my father is chaplain to the hospital at Donisbro’, and he has often told me that the amount of cases coming from the cottages on this estate is appalling. People have been brought to the hospital from Loam and Lislehurst, and even Styles, where the ground is higher, simply crippled with rheumatism, and off and on there have been a good many cases of diphtheria and fever. That doesn’t speak well for the cottages, you know.”
Sydney pulled up the ponies in the middle of the road.
“I shall ask Mr. Fenton,” she said slowly; “I don’t think I could ask St. Quentin.”
“I think asking Mr. Fenton is not at all a bad idea,” Miss Osric said cordially; “but, my dear Sydney, we mustn’t dawdle here in the cold even to discuss points of duty. Have you any more presents to distribute?”
“Just one for Pauly at the Vicarage,” the girl said, gathering up the reins again; “that is the parcel underneath the seat that you said took up as much room as we did. It’s a horse and waggon—a horse with real hair—and I
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 think Pauly will be able to get himself into the waggon if he tucks his legs up. I’m sure he will be pleased—the darling!”
“I wonder how long that quarter’s allowance is going to last,” laughed Miss Osric, as they turned the ponies’ heads up the drive to the Vicarage. “You’ve been so lavish over Christmas presents, Sydney; that parcel for London alone must have nearly ruined you!”
“I am rather near bankruptcy,” owned Sydney. “It is shocking to confess, but I never had such a lot of money to spend in my life, and I went and spent it. But I am not a bit sorry,” she concluded, “for, just for once, they will have at home exactly what they wanted.” Pauly had seen them coming from the window of his father’s study, against which he was flattening his small round nose till it looked exactly like a white button. He flew to the door and cast himself upon them in the hall with a shriek of delight.
“Oh, do you know, it’s going to be Chwistmas Day to-morrow!” he exclaimed, “and I am going to church in the morning like a big man, and Santa Claus is coming in the night, daddy finks, to put fings in my stocking, ’cause I’ve been a very good boy for years and not runned away or been lostened!”
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The Vicar, too, was not behindhand in his welcome, though he was not quite so conversational as his little son.
“Come into the study, both of you,” he said; “we’ve got a real Yule log there, haven’t we, Pauly?—such a monster!—and I’m sure you must be frozen.”
The Sydney of six weeks ago would have accepted Mr. Seaton’s offer, but the Sydney of to-day had learned to think what would annoy her cousin and Lady Frederica.
“I am afraid we must hurry back, mustn’t we, Miss Osric?” she said. “We shall be rather late as it is. We have been all round the village, wishing ever so many people a happy Christmas, so we must only just wish the same to you, and ask you to tell Santa Claus to see if he can’t find a rather large, knobby parcel in the corner of the hall for Pauly, when he comes to visit you to-night.”
“It’s very good of you,” said the Vicar. “Pauly, don’t tear Miss Lisle’s clothes to pieces in your joy. You spoil him, you know, Miss Lisle, if you will allow me to say so. Well, if you must go, a very happy Christmas to you both! You are going the right way to make it a happy one, I think.”
“Mr. Seaton, one thing,” Sydney asked
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 as they went through the hall together. “Are the people miserable here because their cottages want rebuilding?”
Mr. Seaton looked at the earnest face beside him, and wondered if the wish to help her poorer neighbours would continue when she had the power.
“Yes,” he said, “I am sorry to own that most of the cottages here are in a very neglected condition. But landlords have no easy time of it, I know, and often lack the means to do all they want.”
“Thank you,” said Sydney, and then she kissed little Pauly, and she and Miss Osric got into the carriage and drove away, the Vicar watching them, with his small son, riotous and conversational, on his shoulder, till they turned out into the road again.
“I don’t think I ever knew anybody more devoted to a child than that man is,” said Miss Osric, as they reached the lodge gates. “What would he have done if he had lost him the other day?”
“Oh, don’t talk about that dreadful morning!” said Sydney with a shiver.
Lady Frederica had no love for Christmas.
“One is expected to be so aggressively cheerful and social,” she complained, “when
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 one is really feeling bored to extinction! And now St. Quentin’s illness casts a gloom over everything; it is most absurd to attempt any feeling of festivity. He wouldn’t like it at all.”
“Did Cousin St. Quentin care for Christmas when he was well?” Sydney asked a little wistfully.
“Well, I remember one year, when both his father and mother were alive, they had the regular old-fashioned sort of Christmas, and he certainly seemed to enjoy it. The Dean of Donisbro’ and his daughter Katharine were here, I remember. The Dean had slipped upon a slide some tiresome boy had made when he came over to dine here the week before Christmas, and he fell and sprained his ankle. Of course Dr. Lorry wouldn’t let him travel, so St. Quentin got poor dear Alicia, his mother, to go to Donisbro’ herself and bring back Miss Morrell to spend Christmas with her father. There were only those two, you see. My dear, Katharine Morrell was a pretty girl in those days! You’ve seen her, haven’t you? but she has gone off a good deal. I fancy St. Quentin admired her rather, but it didn’t come to anything, though we all thought it would that Christmas-time. But
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 she was a good deal too strait-laced for him, I expect; not that he was worse than other young man, but he ran through a lot of money on cards and racing, and annoyed his poor father very much. Oh! Sir Algernon, is that you?” (Sir Algernon had entered at the moment). “I was telling Sydney of that Christmas when the Dean and Miss Morrell were here. I forget if you have met Katharine Morrell?”
Sydney saw a strange expression cross the handsome face for a moment. But in a second he had answered in his usual rather languid accents, “Yes, I know her slightly; very slightly.”
Christmas Day dawned clear and sunny and Sydney, as she stood beside Lady Frederica in the Castle pew at Lislehurst Church, felt something of the joy of Christmas coming to her, even in this strange place. She smiled across at little Pauly, who, standing beside Mr. Seaton’s housekeeper, was singing, “Hark! the herald angels sing” with all his might, and to a time and tune quite his own.
Mr. Seaton’s sermon was very short; he said he thought the Christmas hymns and carols preached a better sermon than he had the power to do. He only asked his people
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 to remember that next to God’s glory, the angels had set peace and goodwill upon earth. The second followed on the first. He wanted all those who had to-day been glorifying God for His great Christmas Gift, to see to it that peace and goodwill was not lacking in that small part of God’s earth that concerned each—his or her own home.
Sydney had not seen her cousin since her outburst on the subject of the Chichesters, and her conscience pricked her. It was true that St. Quentin had expressed no wish to see her, but she had made no attempt to find out if he had one unexpressed. Surely the first move towards that peace and goodwill of which Mr. Seaton spoke should come from her!
She and Lady Freder............