It was with a face of unusual excitement that she rushed to open the front door to them when the time arrived, and the first glance at the child’s eager face reassured Mrs. Fleming, who had feared that Gretta might have demurred against the arrangement for her father’s sake.
“You’re looking forward to school, then, Gretta?” she inquired, when Sybil had flown to acquaint Ann with the details of her visit.
“Dad says we’re to go, and he seems to think he can manage without me, and thank you very much,” said Gretta, unwontedly demonstrative in the excitement that she was feeling. “Auntie, darling, do you really mean it?—about violin lessons, too?”
“Why, of course, my dear,” said Mrs. Fleming. “Your mother told me in her letters, as you know, that you had quite a special gift in that direction. She played so beautifully herself that I should like you to have the advantages she had. Perhaps, too, Gretta, you know, you might use it in years to come. It means hard work, but—the practising, I mean.”
“Practice!” repeated Sybil, entering the room in high feather. “Is that what you’re talking about? What a stupid thing! Aren’t you telling Gretta about the hotel breakfast, auntie, and all the lots of different things the waiters brought! But she’s sure to talk about that old violin if anyone’ll listen; she’s just half-crazy about it. She twangs it from morning to night when dad’s out, and last month she gave up sugar in her tea because she’d no pocket-money and she wanted to buy a new string, and——” The child paused, breathless.
Gretta blushed crimson, but as much with pleasure at what the future held, as with annoyance at Sybil’s speech. Everything in her world seemed changed; school, music-lessons, were to come her way; she was feeling that she already had as much pleasure in prospect as a princess in a fairy-tale, when Mrs. Fleming’s next speech made her gasp.
“And we’ve got all your clothes to get, you know.”
Clothes! Gretta hadn’t given them a thought; but evidently Sybil had. “I’m to have some jumper dresses just like Margot’s,” she announced grandly. “We’ve both been measured! And brown stockings, Gretta—brown!”
Evidently with brown stockings the summit of Sybil’s happiness had been reached. Gretta could only turn her eyes wonderingly towards her aunt.
“Oh, auntie, how lovely! But—ought she to have them? She has some quite good black ones, only, of course, they’re darned.”