'Oh Silvia, and have a portrait like this!' cried Robin, opening the ill-used book at a page where Miss Mitford was depicted in company with other worthies, whose heads had been adorned by Sydney with cocked hats, and whose eyes had been altered by Robin to a size and blackness appalling to behold.
'Come, boys,' said Christie, after there had been a general laugh at Silvia's ambition, 'make haste and finish putting away, and then we'll go and have some fun in the long garret.'
This suggestion cleared the room very speedily; for the long garret was much esteemed by the young Dalrymples, on a wet afternoon like the present, as a capital substitute for the garden or the park. Here they had a long and exciting game of hide-and-seek; and it was not till the autumn afternoon was near its close, and twilight was gradually creeping on and filling the corners of the garret with gloom, that Silvia, the least active of the party, and tired of the sport, stole away by herself to one of her favourite haunts. This was the top step of the fine old oak staircase, which formed one of the chief beauties of the house of Horsemandown. From there she could peep through the carved, twisted bannisters, and watch whatever went on in the hall below. Sometimes it was Sir Bernard Dalrymple's brown setter and Robin's little rough terrier romping on the mat by the hall door which engaged her attention; sometimes it was her mother watering the flowers, that seemed to bloom perpetually in the sunny hall window; and sometimes it was Sydney and Christie having one of their most exciting games of battledore, which were really worth looking at, so well did they both play.
When these amusements failed, and the hall was deserted, as was the case at present, Silvia found plenty of companions in the pictures, which covered the walls around her. Beyond the fact that they were most of them portraits of her own ancestors, she knew very little about them. But that did not matter, for she used to find names for them all out of whatever book she was reading. These names generally had nothing to do with their style of dress, which Silvia considered a matter of no consequence: she only cared for some imaginary likeness of feature or expression. Thus, a tall, thin, dark-eyed gentleman with a Vandyke beard had been christened by turns 'Hamlet,' 'Prince Giglio,' or 'Osmond de Centeville,' according to whether Silvia was absorbed in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, The Rose and the Ring, or The Little Duke; while a severe-looking dame, with powdered hair and an unmistakable hoop, did duty with equal faithfulness for 'The Lady of Branksome Tower,' or the Witch Aunt in Mrs Leicester's School.
On the present occasion Silvia was not left long in undisturbed possession of her favourite nook, for on the dispersion of the garret-party she was joined by Robin; who, after remarking with a yawn that prisoners'-base indoors was decidedly slow, tried to get rid of his superfluous energy by sliding down the bannisters to the bottom of the staircase. Silvia felt obliged to put down her book, and watch him as he climbed slowly up again outside the railing, and felt much relieved when he appeared at the top.
'What book are you poring over now?' he inquired with some contempt, peeping over his sister's shoulder. 'History! Oh Silvia, how can you—in play-time?'
'It's not history; it's a story,' said Silvia indignantly; 'at least it is just like a story. And it is so interesting.'
'But it's all true?' said Robin, with a face of great disgust.
'Well, it is just as nice as if it wasn't,' replied his sister. 'And besides, I think I rather like books to be true, or, at any rate, to think that they might be true. I can't think why you hate all the people in history so, Robin!'
'I don't hate them all,' said Robin, after pondering the subject with a very grave face. 'I like them when they do something uncommonly jolly; and, besides, there certainly are some that I want to know about very much indeed. One's own relations, I mean. I know they are in history books—that is, some of them: relations who lived a long time ago. What do you call them?'