Sylvia made a little grimace. She thrust her arm through Letitia's and drew her off towards the lawn, where some chairs had been brought out under a cedar tree. "You are such a wonderful person, Letitia," she said, "and of course your father's a Marquis and mine isn't. But I thought, nowadays, Americans were good enough for anybody in the world, if only they had enough money." "Both my father and I, you see," Letitia observed, "are a little old-fashioned. I have never had any idea of marriage, except with some one whose family I knew all about." "Of course," Sylvia declared, "I am a horrid Radical, and I think I'd sooner not know about mine. If Mr. Thain's antecedents were unmentionable, I should adore him just the same, but, as I know your father would remind me in some very delicate fashion if he were here, the situation is different. You don't mind talking about him, do you, Letitia, because that's what I've come for?" "Well, I'll listen," Letitia promised, as she settled herself in an easy-chair. "I really don't know what I should find to say, except that he's moderately good-looking, has quite nice manners, and money enough to buy the whole county." "You are fearfully severe," Sylvia sighed. "Of course, I've been talking rot, as I always do, but we did find him charming, Letitia, both Daddy and I. He was so simple and unaffected, and he drove me into Fakenham and bought cutlets for our luncheon. When I come to think of it," she went on, with a look of horror in her face, "I believe he paid for them, too." "He can well afford to," Letitia laughed. The Marquis came to them across the lawn. He held in his hand an open telegram. "From Grantham, my dear," he said to Letitia. "It appears that he is bored with town and proposes to come down to-morrow night instead of waiting until Saturday. I have replied that he will be very welcome. Mrs. Foulds will really have to bestir herself. I have a line from Caroline, too, to ask if she may stay for a couple of days on her way to Harrogate." Letitia rose to her feet. The cloud which had fallen upon her face was doubtless owing to housekeeping cares. The Marquis, shading his eyes with his hand, was gazing across the park. "Really," he remarked, a little drily, "I shall have to hint to our new neighbour that turf which is several hundred years old is not meant to be cut up like prairie-land. He sits his horse well, though." Sylvia jumped quickly up and Letitia gazed in the direction which her father had indicated. David, on his black horse, was riding across the park towards Broomleys. CHAPTER XXV