"That was too bad!"
"Yes, wasn't it? I'd rather not go to tea at the Jacksons'. Mrs. Jackson always says I don't eat half enough. Beatrice and Nora have four thick slices of plain bread and butter before they begin with jam or honey, and great basins of bread-and-milk or soup plates full of porridge for breakfast. I think it's rather rude of people to make remarks on what you eat when you go out to tea. Don't you?"
"It just depends," said Mrs. Lindsay.
"Well, they don't like it themselves," continued Sylvia. "The last time the Jacksons were here, when their nurse came to fetch them I told her I was sure they had enjoyed themselves, for Nora had eaten four buns and three sponge cakes, and Alfie had ten jam sandwiches and a piece of Madeira cake. I thought it would please her to hear they had had so much, when they scold me for eating so little, but she went quite red in the face and said they were not greedy children anyway."
"It was hardly a happy remark, I am afraid," said Mrs. Lindsay. "You will be wiser next time."
"People in books are so much nicer than real people," said Sylvia plaintively. "If I could have a party and invite Little Lord Fauntleroy, and Alice in Wonderland, and Rose out of Eight Cousins and Rowena and Rebecca, and perhaps Queen Guinevere, and Hereward the Wake, then I should really enjoy myself."
"Can't you pretend that your friends are heroes and heroines of romance?" said Mrs. Lindsay, pinching Sylvia's pale cheeks. "You're so fond of make-believe that it ought to be quite easy to imagine them princes and princesses."
"It's not so easy as you'd think," replied Sylvia, shaking her head. "I make up lovely stories about them sometimes, and they just go and spoil it all. I played one afternoon that Effie was an enchanted princess, shut up in a magic garden; but she kept on eating green apples instead of simply looking lovely among the flowers, and when I put a wreath of roses round her hair she said it had earwigs and spiders in it, and she pulled it off. I didn't dare to tell her what I was playing, because she laughs so, but I began a piece of poetry about her, only it's never got beyond the first verse. Then there's that boy who lives in the house with the green railings down the road. I don't know his name, but he has blue eyes and very light curly hair. Once I played for a whole week that he was Sir Galahad—he's exactly like the picture Father showed me in that big book on the drawing-room table; but just when I'd made up my mind that he was starting off to find the Holy Grail, he threw a snowball at me, and trod hard on Lassie's tail on purpose. Somehow I never could manage to think of him as Sir Galahad after that. Now, Mother, don't laugh!"
"It would be rather difficult, I own," said Mrs. Lindsay, trying to straighten her face. "I'm afraid you made an unfortunate choice in your knight."
"It's just as bad," continued Sylvia, "if you pretend you're somebody out of a book yourself. So much depends upon other people. I was Rowena in Ivanhoe yesterday. I had to be rather haughty; because, you see, I was a Saxon princess, and everybody was accustomed to obey my slightest wish. But Miss Holt didn't understand it in the least; she said if I spoke to her again like that she should send me out of the room. So I had to be Peter Pan instead, and Miss Holt asked me if I had taken leave of my senses. She was really quite angry with me."