Читать книгу Sydney Lisle, the Heiress of St. Quentin онлайн

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Sydney Henderson had but just left school when she went as governess to the little boy and girl of Lady Braemuir, niece to the Marquess of St. Quentin. It was a big, gay house; but the little governess, playing nursery games with her charges, saw little of the company till Lady Braemuir’s youngest cousin, Lord Francis, came to shoot the Braemuir grouse before joining his regiment.

The children were full of “Tousin Fwank” before he came. He had stayed at Braemuir six months previously. When he came, the reason of their interest in his arrival became speedily apparent. Francis Lisle was perfectly devoted to children, with a genuine devotion that made mothers beam upon him.

He was known in the nurseries of many a big house: he made himself at home in the school-room of his little cousins.

Lady Braemuir laughed at him and his “childish tastes,” but never said a word upon the subject to the little governess, hardly more than a child herself, until a day when, coming home from a tennis-party tired and cross, she heard laughter issuing from the school-room, where Lord Francis, who had declined going to the party, was found sharing his little cousins’ tea.