Sylvia turned large blue eyes on her cousin. "Oh, Ros," she said pleadingly, "can you not feel any excitement at all? I know you did not wish to come, but since you had no choice in the matter, will you not allow yourself to feel some eagerness at least? It is April, the height of the Season, and we are to be part of it all. This is what I have dreamed of for several years." There were tears in her eyes.

"Yes, I know you have, Sylvie," Miss Rosalind Dacey replied, her expression softening somewhat, "and I know that you have had to wait a whole year longer than you should because we have been wearing black."

"Do you think nineteen is dreadfully old to be making my come-out?" Sylvia asked anxiously.

Rosalind smiled and shook her head.

"Poor Papa!" her cousin continued. "He was going to bring me himself more than a year ago, for all that he hated town life so. Aunt Lavinia would have chaperoned me. And I would have been barely eighteen-just the right age."

"Well, you are looking remarkably well-preserved for one so advanced in years," Rosalind assured her. "If you keep your back to the light at all times, no one may notice your wrinkles."

Sylvia let out a peal of laughter. "What a tease you are," she said. "You know very well what I meant. And anyway, I do not begrudge Papa that year of mourning. I did love him so, Ros. He was the best of fathers."

"Yes, and the best of uncles," her cousin agreed. "He would not have forced me to come to London. He was quite willing to let me stay at Raymore Manor while he took you to London. I should have been quite happy there, even though he had invited Cousin Hetty and her poodles to come and bear me company. Indeed, Sylvie, I wish he had not died."