"She's a Mrs. Norman; her husband was a captain in the 12th Lancers." "Never heard of her," repeated Austin. "But now I come to think of it, the parents were saying something to each other about Lovelace's. I didn't take much notice. Is she a good sort?" The Major gave an emphatic nod. Sidney began to laugh. "Uncle Ted is bowled over. I'm to go down in the early hours of to-morrow, and she's to feed here till she gets in comfortably. It's all arranged." "I think I'll stroll round and have a look at her," said Austin. "If I'm a connection, I ought to have first innings." "Ask your mother about her first," said Sidney. "Oh, you suspicious, conventional brutes!" The Major shot this out with vehemence; then walked out of the room, and banged the door behind him. Sidney could not treat it gravely. "Dad," she said, "this is worse than we have had hitherto. Uncle Ted is always susceptible, but he never has capitulated quite so rapidly." "Don't chaff him. You'll make his kind-heartedness into something more if you don't look-out!" Sidney took her father's rebuke at once, and said no more; but the next morning a groom rode down before breakfast with a note from Mrs. de Cressiers: "MY DEAR SIDNEY,—Mrs. Norman married the son of the second cousin of my brother-in-law, Colonel St. Orr, who married my youngest sister. Can this be called a connection? Certainly nothing more. I have neither heard nor seen anything of the lady herself, except that my sister mentioned her name in a letter. Why are you so precipitately making her acquaintance? Surely you can wait till I have called upon her? And I certainly am not going to do that till I return from town. I am going up for a fortnight next Tuesday.—Yours in haste, with love— "CLARICE DE CRESSIERS." Sidney read the first part of this note aloud at the breakfast table. The latter bit she kept to herself, for she knew she would have no peace from her uncle until she had been down to the cottage; and though Mrs. de Cressiers always tried to rule her life, Sidney had never allowed her to do so. Her father was quite aware of Mrs. de Cressiers' failing and always backed his daughter up to resist her sway. "No woman shall rule my ship," he would say genially; "and these old families are not living in the feudal days; neither are we their serfs. Oh, I know, my dear, your mother was a de Cressier, but the Urquhart blood is quite as good, and a little more vigorous than theirs; and you are your father's daughter, remember, and not Mrs. de Cressiers'!" So after breakfast Sidney accompanied her uncle down to Lovelace's Cottage.