“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 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 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.”