She looked up quickly, and saw that a stranger was slipping into the seat beside her. She did not guess for a moment that he, too, was a cousin. He looked so different from all the Cossarts she had seen so far. Perhaps the startled look in her big wistful eyes showed this, for the voice continued speaking. “I am your cousin Cyril. Probably you know our names from our father by this time. I think I can feel for you better than the rest—coming into this strange life, which is so different from anything you have known before. They had been used to it all their lives—they know nothing else. But I do, and I can understand how you must feel about it.” “I don’t think I feel anything yet,” said Sheila slowly, “I have not had time. But Uncle Tom has been very kind. I think—I hope—I am sure I ought to be very happy.” Yet even as she spoke Sheila felt the tears suddenly spring to her eyes. She did not know how it was; but just this arrival at a strange house, this feeling of being suddenly cast into the midst of a number of strange people seemed to bring before her her loneliness in a way she had never felt it before. She looked round for Oscar, but Ray had got him in her care, and was chattering gaily to him. Her uncle was for the moment engrossed with his wife and elder son. The wave of loneliness seemed to rise higher and higher about her. She felt the sob in her throat, and turned her face towards the fire to get rid of the welling tears before they should be seen. “I know so well what you feel,” said Cyril’s sympathetic voice in her ear. “Often when I have come home from college, or from other people’s houses, the same feeling has come over me. If I had been a girl I should have cried too. It seemed like stepping into a new world where one had no interests, no heart, no sympathies.” “Oh, but I don’t want to feel like that!” said Sheila quickly. “That would be wrong and ungrateful. Uncle Tom has been so kind. You are all kind. Only—only—I haven’t often been away from home; and it seems all so strange; and there isn’t any more home left behind—that is what is the strangest thing of all!” Her voice broke for a moment, and Cyril put out his hand and laid it on hers in token of comprehension and sympathy; but there was no time for more words, for the group in the middle of the room broke up. There was a stir at the door, and two maids appeared with the tea-table and equipage; and Sheila found herself the centre of attraction as the lamp shed its light over the darkening room, and everybody gathered round the fire to discuss hot cakes and steaming cups of tea, whilst they “took stock” of the new cousins and tried to make them feel at home.