“I only receive my special visitors up here.”
Anne’s smile flattered and touched the girl.
She slipped down on to the sofa beside her friend, and moved close to her with a caressing movement, as she took the tea-cup from her hand.
“These cakes were baked expressly for you, so you must do them justice. Really cook makes them very prettily, doesn’t she? They’re rather like the cakes in Goblin Market. Do you remember how the sisters
‘Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat?’”
She passed them to Sylvia in their silver basket, over the rim of which fell a d’oyley of fine lace and linen.
Sylvia shook her head. “I don’t know anything!” she exclaimed. “I shall never know anything if I stay here. Oh Miss Page, do help me to get away! You can do anything with father. Please persuade him that I ought to go. You know how it is at home. I’m not really wanted. We’re quite comfortably off, and there are enough servants to do the work without making work for me, to try to keep me quiet when I’m aching to go and make my own life!”
She pushed her cup away from her with an impatient movement.
Anne waited a moment. “It’s still the music, I suppose?”