“Why, that it is, miss,” was the hearty response, “if it weren’t for just a little leakage in the boiler. But there, miss, I’ve no call to complain, for indeed I scarcely know myself with my beautiful tiled kitchen, as is almost too good to use, and my back-kitchen as is fit for duchesses to work in, and all the rest as ’is lordship ’as done for me. Reckon that there boiler is my crumpled rose-leaf, miss!”
Mrs. Sawyer was so serious that Sydney felt it would not do to laugh, though the description of the large black boiler as “a rose-leaf” made the corners of the mouth twitch ominously.
She volunteered to come and look at it, and was bending down to examine the defective tap, when a roar of distant cheering made both forget the leaking boiler and rush wildly to the door. “They are coming!”
Round the bend in the road, under the great arch wreathed with flowers and bearing the inscription, “Welcome to the bride and bridegroom,” bowled the carriage. There they were!
St. Quentin, still very thin, but upright, hat in hand, smiling and nodding to his tenants as they roared their welcome, and by his side Katharine, fair and stately, unchanged, except that the sadness had passed from her eyes.
Sydney ran forward, and the carriage stopped.
“Hullo! what are you doing wandering about alone?” St. Quentin asked, laughing, when they had exchanged greetings. “Lucky for you Aunt Rica isn’t here! What is it?”
“I am trying to make out what is wrong with Mrs. Sawyer’s boiler,” she explained; “it leaks.”