“Yes, it is; there, put it in your purse. You can change it at the Bank at Dacreshaw, where I hear you’re going. Good-bye, don’t spend it all on chocolates!”
For the first time since her arrival at St. Quentin Castle, Sydney felt almost happy. What Christmas presents she could get now for every one at home! Should she choose them at Dacreshaw, or wait till she went to Donisbro’ for the lessons in drilling and deportment she was to take with a very select class of girls in the cathedral city?
She sat in a happy dream all through the drive, and only roused herself when she reached the print-shop.
The Castle carriage was known, and the owner of the shop came forward at once to serve the young lady, leaving the customer he had been attending—a tall, graceful girl, some years Sydney’s senior, with great calm, clear eyes.
Sydney found the shopman most obliging. He bowed repeatedly; he seemed willing to reach down every picture in the shop for her to look at, regardless of the trouble, and he asked with real anxiety after the health of “his lordship, Lord St. Quentin.”
The tall girl had come rather near to them to examine a picture Sydney had laid down. She started at the shopman’s question, looked irresolutely for a minute at the younger girl, then came across to her with a smile.
“Miss Lisle,” she said, “you will not know me, but I know Lady Frederica very well, and have stayed at Castle St. Quentin. I am Katharine Morrell.”
“Mr. Fenton told me about you,” Sydney said, brightening instantly. Speaking to another girl felt like meeting a countryman in a strange and savage land. “Do you live near?” she added eagerly.
“Some distance off; at Donisbro’,” she said; “my father is the Dean of Donisbro’ Cathedral. I hear you are coming to the calisthenic class at Lady Helmsley’s. Perhaps I shall see something of you, for I am taking a little cousin to it.”