"I hope she will. But it's a poor lookout for me if I've got to make a bosom friend of her, while you and Lady Brent are putting your heads together. Really, darling, I don't think I can stand it."
"Harry may be home any day, and until he does come we can spend most of our time at Poldaven, though of course we mustn't just make a convenience of being here. The Vicarage people are dining to-night, so you won't have her on your hands entirely. The Vicar is David Grant, the novelist. I haven't read any of his novels, but I believe a lot of people do. I expect he's a clever man, and will cheer us up a bit."
"I should think we shall have quite an hilarious evening—you and Lady Brent talking together, and me and Mrs. Brent and the Vicarage people."
"I thought you rather liked Vicarage people. Don't make yourself superior to your company, there's a good girl. It's the worst sort of form—especially in the country."
Whatever the allusion to Vicarage people may have meant, it sent Sidney out of the room with a blush on her cheeks, and Lady Avalon rang for her maid with a look on her face as of one who had been rather clever.
Sidney had grown into a pretty girl, though she was considered the ugly duckling of the handsome family to which she belonged. She was tall, and had not yet quite grown out of the youthful awkwardness of her stature. But there was more character in her well-shaped features than her sisters could boast of, though their widely known beauty had descended upon them in early childhood and suffered no relapse through the years of their growth. They inherited their good looks from both sides of the family, but Sidney was the only one of the girls who derived more from her father. Perhaps on that account she was his favourite, and he was accustomed to prophesy that she would beat them all in looks when she really grew up. She had kind eyes and a smiling mouth, to which her decisively jutting chin gave character. Her skin was very fair and clear, and her abundant brown hair had just a touch of auburn in it. There were some to whom the hint of gaucherie in her carriage gave her an added charm. It spoke of health and youth and vigour, and went well with her free unafraid speech and her frequent smile.
Grant, always on the lookout for new types of female beauty, but a little inclined to make all his heroines alike, studied her closely that evening at dinner and was enchanted with her. If he had known that she had been looked upon as an ugly duckling in her family it would almost have given him a novel ready made. Mrs. Grant liked her too, and as they walked home across the park, cheered by the unaccustomed pleasures of society, they made a match between her and Harry there and then, as the Pawle and Brent nurses had done in their early childhood.
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Grant, "if Lady Brent had asked her here with that idea in her mind. It's the first time in the three years we've been here that any young person has stayed at the Castle. I dare say Lady Avalon is in it too. They're old friends, and they seem to have their heads together a good deal."
"Lady Brent didn't know Harry was coming home when she told us they were coming," said Mrs. Grant. "It's a coincidence, but perhaps a fortunate one. They played together as children—Harry and Lady Sidney. It would be rather a pretty match—except that Harry is so young—not twenty yet."
"You think he ought to wait a few years and marry somebody much younger, eh? Somebody about the age of Jane."