And, as Sydney walked rapidly away, he looked after her, thinking of the great results which had followed on the girl’s simple straightforward performance of that work she found to do.
He thought of the enormous difference to be seen in the villages all over the estate; of their owner, honestly striving to do his best for the people whose comfort was committed to his charge; of the happy marriage brought about by her means, and he did not wonder at the hearty cheers with which the bride was received, as she came down the crimson-covered churchyard path upon her cousin’s arm.
Sydney flushed with pleasure: it was very pleasant to feel herself surrounded by so much affection and goodwill.
“I am so very glad it is not ‘good-bye’ to this home,” she whispered to St. Quentin; and he smiled, well pleased.
She had her own way about the wedding festivities, and all the tenants, rich and poor alike, were feasted in the Castle grounds.
It was a day long remembered through the county, and any doubt the tenants may have felt as to Sydney’s perfect pleasure in her dispossession were quite swept away then by the sight of her radiant face.
“Our young lady,” she would be always to the Lislehurst people, but they plainly saw that she was happy in the humbler path her feet were to tread.
“She looked for all the world like a bit of spring and sunshine,” Mrs. Sawyer used to say, in talking of that happy wedding day, “and Dr. Hugh, his face matched hers for gladness, as it should. God bless ’em both!”
It was a bewilderingly happy day, from the moment that Sydney put her hand into Hugh’s strong one, where she could so safely trust her future, to that in which Pauly, after some loudly whispered directions from old Mr. Hudder, marched forward, and laid in Sydney’s hand the lovely little gold watch, with which she had parted for the sake of her poorer neighbours. “For you,” he said briefly.
“A testimony of respectful affection from his lordship’s tenantry in Lislehurst to their young lady,” Mr. Hudder amended.