“Well, if she does, I don’t much care,” thought the happy girl. “After all, truth is best. Why should I deceive? I deceived when I was here last, when I wore Audrey’s dress. I had not the courage then that I have now. Somehow to-day I feel happy and not afraid of anything.”
She was met, just before she reached the front entrance, by Audrey and Evelyn.
“Here, Evelyn,” she cried—“here is a note for you.”
Evelyn took it quickly. She did not want Audrey to know that Jasper was living at The Priory. She turned aside and read her note, and Audrey devoted herself to Sylvia. Audrey had liked Sylvia before; she liked her better than ever now. She was far too polite to glance at her improved dress; that somehow seemed to tell her that happier circumstances had dawned for Sylvia, and a sense of rejoicing visited her.
“I am so very glad you have come!” she said. “Evelyn and I have been planning how we are to spend the day. We want to give you, and ourselves also, a right good time. Do you know that Evelyn and I are schoolgirls now? Is it not strange? Dear Miss Sinclair has left us. We miss her terribly; but I think we shall like school-life—eh, Eve?”
Evelyn had finished Jasper’s letter, and had thrust it into her pocket.
“I hate school-life!” she said emphatically.
“Oh Eve! but why?” asked Audrey. “I thought you were making a great many friends at school.”
“Wherever I go I shall make friends,” replied Evelyn in a careless tone. “That, of course, is due to my position. But I do not know, after all,” she continued, “that I like fair-weather friends. Mothery used to tell me that I must be careful when with them. She said they would, one and all, expect me to do something for them. Now, I hate people who want you to do things for them. For my part, I shall soon let my so-called friends know that I am not that sort of girl.”
“Let us walk about now,” said Audrey. “It will be lunch-time before long; afterwards I thought we might go for a ride. Can you ride, Sylvia?”