“Oh, Gretta, you spoil-sport! But you can’t change it, for they’re bought, aren’t they, Auntie Tib?” and she danced a jig round Mrs. Fleming’s chair.
“I spoke to your father, Gretta,” said that lady, when Sybil’s excitement had subsided, “and asked him if I might think of you three little girls as sisters while you were at school. He agreed, and understood why I wanted it, and I think you are old enough to understand, too.”
Gretta said no more after that; she did not find it so easy as Sybil did to express herself in words, but Mrs. Fleming could read the feelings in her face and felt well repaid for all that she was doing for the children. When she left again that afternoon it was with the promise that, during the fortnight that remained before the new term at the Cliff School commenced, she would undertake the buying of the children’s wardrobes, and see that all things were in readiness for the twenty-first of January.
That fortnight went by in a whirl of delight. Ann worked with a will, excited with the idea that she was to be the doctor’s housekeeper and factotum and “see if she could manage to make him really comfortable,” as Mrs. Fleming put it. The doctor forgot his worries and fell in with all the plans. Auntie came and went like a good fairy, cheerful and kind, and Sybil was in such a state of wild delight at the pleasures that school must hold for her that she could hardly wait patiently until the eventful day should arrive.
“But you’ll be as glad to get home for the holidays as you are to get away, Miss Sybil, and that’s a fact,” quoth Ann sententiously, on the last evening. “You’ll have to behave yourself where you’re going; see if you don’t!”
“That’s all you know about it!” said Sybil grandly.
But when the day had dawned at last—the twenty-first of January, and the first day of school—the throb that the little girl’s heart gave as she woke from her dreams somehow or other did not feel as though it was quite due to joyful excitement, and even Gretta was conscious of very mixed feelings, the most pronounced of which seemed to be a positive disinclination to saying good-bye to the doctor.
The children’s father appeared to be the most cheery member of the group that met at the breakfast-table. Sybil found herself for once quite unable to eat, and if it had not been for Ann’s I-told-you-so expression of countenance when she entered the room with hot plates, the child would probably have dissolved into tears before the end of the meal. Her older sister was fully occupied with her own thoughts; turning and re-turning over in her mind every possible dreadful thing that might happen! Suppose Ann should not make dad comfortable; suppose he should get ill! Suppose—suppose! It was a relief to all when the postman’s knock sounded and Sybil raced to the letter-box, taking the opportunity to mop her eyes in the loneliness of the passage as she went.
The only letter proved to be from auntie, and was merely a repetition of the plans already decided upon for the comfort of the children on their journey. “Margot and I will meet you both for lunch at York,” she wrote. “Then I will see you into the Cliffland train, and you three will travel down together.” The words came like the welcome sound of Mrs. Fleming’s cheery voice; somehow things began to feel different, and by ten o’clock, when the children were ready to start for the station with their father, Sybil’s tongue, at least, was loosed once more.
“Good-bye, Ann. When I come back I’ll tell you all about school.” Sybil was dressed in her new navy-blue suit and sported the cherished brown stockings. Her hair was plaited and tied with a ribbon bow. She felt an experienced schoolgirl already.