"You always say I shouldn"t hear either a burglar or an earthquake,"
she declared, "and Toby was very nearly as bad. You naughty, precious puss! What do you mean by coming and scaring my Sylvia? There, you didn"t do it on purpose, did you? Come into my bed for a minute before I get up. You"re the sweetest, softest darling that ever was."
Sylvia"s birthday was on the nineteenth of November, and to her great delight it happened this year on a Sat.u.r.day. Miss Kaye, who tried to make school seem as much like home as possible, was indulgent regarding such anniversaries, and permitted many small privileges to the fortunate owner of a birthday. Sylvia was allowed to choose the dinner, an important decision, over which she lingered so long that the mistress nearly lost patience.
"Of course you must not order turkey and ice cream," said Miss Kaye; "it must be two of our ordinary dishes, only you may have which you like. Be quick, for Cook is waiting to know."
After some hesitation Sylvia decided on hotpot and fig pudding.
"I like the potatoes on the top of the hotpot," she explained to Linda, "especially when they"re crisp and brown, and the fig pudding always has delicious sweet sauce, and Miss Kaye lets one take plenty of sugar with it. Jessie Ellis chose boiled mutton and corn-flour blancmange with jam on her birthday. I don"t think that was nice at all."
The girls in her cla.s.s subscribed, and gave Sylvia a birthday book as their joint present, containing poetical quotations from Shakespeare for each day, and one or two pretty ill.u.s.trations of Perdita, Portia, and other heroines. She was charmed with such a remembrance and asked them all to write their names in it.
"We chose a fawn cover," said Nina, "because topaz is the birthday stone for November. Marian wanted a green one, but I said that wouldn"t do. It"s a funny thing, but people always say your month stone matches your eyes. I never can quite decide whether yours are brown or dark grey, but I"m sure a necklace of topaz would suit you beautifully, and you"ll have to wear one when you"re grown up. By the by, on which day of the week were you born?"
"On a Friday," said Sylvia; "but why do you want to know?"
"Then you"re loving and giving."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, don"t you know the old rhyme?
"Monday"s child is fair of face, Tuesday"s child is full of grace, Wednesday"s child is a child of woe, Thursday"s child has far to go, Friday"s child is loving and giving, Sat.u.r.day"s child must work for its living, But the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is good and truthful and happy and gay.""
"Where do you learn all these things?" asked Sylvia.
"From our old cook. She"s a daleswoman, and she can tell what it means when the candle gutters or the clock stops, or a swarm of bees comes, or you see magpies, or your ear burns, or you sneeze, and what"s lucky to do and what"s unlucky."
"You are the greatest goose!" said Marian scornfully. "You don"t mean to say you believe that silly rubbish? We shouldn"t be allowed to talk to our cook at home if she told us such nonsense. You"d better not let Miss Kaye see you throwing salt over your shoulder, or crossing the water when you wash with anybody."
"You always make fun of everything I do," exclaimed Nina plaintively.
"Then you should have more sense," snapped Marian, who prided herself upon being strong-minded.
"Sylvia has a pretty name at any rate," continued Nina, "and so have I. I shouldn"t like to be called Marian; it"s just like Mary Ann."
But as Marian wisely took no notice, and walked away, the shot fell rather flat.
The parcel post came in at half-past ten, and brought several bulky-looking packages addressed to "Miss S. Lindsay". Sylvia bore them off to the playroom and untied the strings before an audience of sympathetic girls, each of whom was almost as interested as if the birthday had been her own.
"Which shall I open first?" she said. "This one feels nice, and it"s in Mother"s writing, too. Lend me your scissors, Marian, that"s a dear. I can"t unfasten this knot. Oh, look! Exactly what I wanted."
And she drew from a cardboard box a charming little Brownie camera with several rolls of films quite ready to use.
"How delightful!" she cried. "Now I can take snapshots of you all, and the house, and Miss Kaye, and everything. I"ll send them home to Father to develop; he"s very clever at photos."
"You won"t be able to take snaps in this dark weather," said Hazel. "I don"t expect you can do much with it until spring. I took some last autumn, and they were so faint you couldn"t tell what they were meant for."
"Well, she can try, at any rate," said Linda. "Perhaps she can manage a time exposure if she puts the camera on something steady, and get a group of the whole cla.s.s in the garden. What"s in the next parcel?"
It proved to be a copy of the _Talisman_, with "Sylvia Lindsay, from her loving Father", written inside--a welcome present, as Sylvia was collecting Scott, and was glad to have an addition to her number of volumes.
"This is a child"s writing," said Marian, taking up a small packet, addressed in a round, rather shaky-looking hand. "Shall I cut the string for you?"
"Really, Marian! Let her open her own parcels. They"re her presents,"
said Linda.
"And my scissors," returned Marian. "I only wanted to help her. Oh!
That"s pretty!" she exclaimed as Sylvia unwrapped a purse made of mother-of-pearl with a gilt clasp and lined with crimson silk. On a half-sheet of notepaper was written: "With best wishes for your birthday from Effie and May".
"How kind of them to send me anything!" said Sylvia. "They never have done before. I suppose it"s because I"m at school. I really am in luck this time."
The next parcel was from Aunt Louisa and Cousin Cuthbert. It was an upright wooden box, containing a set of table croquet, eight little mallets and b.a.l.l.s, with hoops and sticks, arranged on a polished wood stand, and sandbags to place round the table to prevent the b.a.l.l.s from rolling off on to the floor.
"I think this is the nicest of all," cried Linda. "There are just eight mallets, so that the whole cla.s.s can play, and it will be such fun on wet days when we can"t go out."
"I never expected another present from Aunt Louisa," said Sylvia. "She gave me that writing case when I came, and Cuthbert the pencil box, the one I gave to Sadie Thompson, you know."
"I wish she were my aunt," said Marian; "I should think she"s nice."
"She is generally, but it was she who made Father and Mother send me here, and I didn"t want to come in the least."
"Why, but you"re glad now, aren"t you? Everybody likes being at Miss Kaye"s."
"Yes, I"m very glad, though I"m looking forward immensely to Christmas and going home. I wonder what"s inside this smallest parcel. Oh, a brooch from Aunt Mabel and Uncle Herbert! Such a pretty one, like little silver daisies. It will go beautifully with my best dress."
Miss Holt had sent a writing alb.u.m, Granny a bottle of scent, and Uncle Wallace a box of chocolates, so there was quite a show of gifts arranged upon the table.
"You haven"t opened this one yet," said Linda, pointing to the largest parcel, which had been left till the last.
"No, because I knew what it was," said Sylvia. "It"s my birthday cake, and mother said it was to be a present for the whole school."
It was so carefully packed in a wooden box that the children were not able to open it themselves, and were obliged to fetch Miss Coleman, who prised up the lid with a screwdriver and lifted out such a wonderful cake that, as she laid it on a plate, everybody gave a gasping "Oh!" of admiration. It was beautifully iced, with ornaments of pink and white sugar, and Sylvia"s name in sugary letters on the top, and it was of such a large and substantial size that it looked as if even thirty-four girls would be able to cut and come again.
"Mother says there"s a sixpence inside," said Sylvia, "so it will be very exciting to see who gets it at tea. I hope it will be right in the middle of a slice, and not tumble out just when it"s being cut."
"You"re a very fortunate girl," said Miss Coleman. "You"ll have to be quite busy the rest of the day writing letters to thank all these kind friends. I"m going to take the cake to the storeroom, but you may keep the box of chocolates."
Tea was a festive meal. The cake looked most imposing, placed on one of Miss Kaye"s largest dessert dishes in the centre of the table.
Sylvia was allowed to cut it herself, and handed generous slices round to everybody, and she was particularly glad when little Elsie Thompson got the coveted sixpence.
"They never have a cake of their own," whispered Linda; "their aunt doesn"t think of making one for them, and their father is too far away. Sadie had only one present on her birthday besides what we gave her."
Before bedtime came, Sylvia took her handsome bottle of scent, and, wrapping it in a parcel, wrote on a piece of paper: "Will you please accept this from me. I shall feel very hurt if you don"t". Then in defiance of rules she ran into Mercy"s room, and laid it on her pillow, where she would find it when she went to bed.
"I"m sure Granny wouldn"t mind," she said to herself. "No one knows exactly which day is Mercy"s birthday, and, though they keep it on the one when she was found, it might perhaps be to-day, and I couldn"t bear to think that I"ve had all these lovely presents and she should have got nothing at all."