She could not have explained wherein lay the difference, but connected it vaguely with a mysterious undercurrent of romance that ran through her daily life, and of which no one must ever, ever know.
She thought that no one but herself ever invented long, dramatic stories, that went on from day to day, in which one traversed strange and eventful scenes, always a heroine, always becomingly dressed, and always in full view of a selected audience.
Lily also supposed herself, with more reason, to be unique in another respect.
At fifteen, even at sixteen years of age, she still liked playing with toys. Not even such respectable toys as jig-saw puzzles, or ingenious mechanical contrivances—although even such tastes as these must have roused the extreme of scorn in the players of hockey—but terribly, shamefully babyish things—wooden farmyards and tea sets and dolls.
Above all, dolls.
Officially, Lily had outgrown dolls at twelve years old. Miss Cleeve had expected it, had taken it for granted. She might, or might not, have known that there was a little wax baby-doll, in long clothes, hidden in Lily's bedroom.
But certainly neither she, nor anybody else, knew that the doll Sophy had accompanied Lily to school.
Worse—Lily played with Sophy in secret and took her into bed with her every night. She had a small bedroom to herself, as had most of the elder girls, and as soon as the governess in charge had paid her brief nightly visit of inspection, and extinguished the light, Lily crept out of bed, felt her way to the chest of drawers, unlocked the bottom drawer and took out the baby-doll from underneath a pile of garments folded at the very back of the drawer.
She pretended that Sophy had to be hidden away in a cave all day from danger of kidnapping, and that she might only visit her at night. She cuddled her, and talked to her in a whisper, and went to sleep with her in her arms.
With part of herself, Lily really believed that Sophy could understand what she said to her, and appreciate the caresses lavished upon her. There was never any question of her forgetting to conceal the little doll again in the mornings. She was far too genuinely terrified of being found out.