The Third Class at Miss Kaye's A School Story

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

A Wet-day Party

Drip, drip, drip! The rain came pouring down on a certain September afternoon, turning the tennis lawn to a swamp, dashing the bloom off the roses, spoiling the geraniums, and driving even the blackbirds and thrushes to seek shelter inside the summer house. It was that steady, settled, hopeless rain that does not hold out the slightest promise of ever stopping; there was not a patch of blue to be seen in the sky sufficient to make the traditional seaman's jacket; several large black snails were crawling along the garden walk as if enjoying the bath; and the barometer in the hall, which started the day at "Set Fair", had now sunk below "Change", and showed no signs of intending to rise again.

Curled up in a large armchair placed in the bow window of a well-furnished morning-room, a little girl of about eleven years old sat peering out anxiously at the weather.

"It's far too wet!" she remarked cheerfully. "It never means to clear to-day, and it's four o'clock now. They can't possibly come, so I shall just settle down and enjoy myself thoroughly."

She spoke aloud to herself, a habit often indulged in by solitary children, and, opening a copy of Ivanhoe, screwed herself round into an attitude of still greater comfort, and set to work to read with that utter disregard of outer happenings which marks the true lover of books.

She was rather a pretty child; her features were good though the small face was pale and thin; her hair was fair and fluffy, and she had large hazel-grey eyes which looked so very dreamy sometimes that you could imagine their owner was apt to forget the commonplace surroundings of everyday life and live in a make-believe world that was all her own. Equally oblivious of the driving rain outside and the cosy scene within, Sylvia read on, so lost in her story that she did not even notice when the door opened and her mother entered the room.

"Why, here you are, darling! I thought I should find you in Father's study. I'm so sorry it's such a dreadful day for your party."

Sylvia put down her book with a slam, and dragging her mother into the big armchair, installed herself on her knee and administered a somewhat choking hug.

"Oh, Mother dear, I'm so glad!" she declared. "I didn't want a party, and I've been watching the rain all the time and hoping it would go on pouring."

"Sylvia! I thought you would be terribly disappointed. Don't you want to see your little friends?"

"Not very much."

"But why, sweetheart?"

Sylvia squeezed her mother's hand in her own and sighed, as if she found it rather difficult to explain herself.

"Lots of reasons," she said briefly.

"Tell me what they are."

"Why, for one thing, I've just got to the middle of Ivanhoe, where Rowena is shut up in Front de Bœuf's castle, and I want to see how she escapes. I'd much rather stay and read than go racing round the garden playing at 'I spy!'"

"But I thought you liked Effie and May and the Fergusson boys."

"I hate boys!" declared Sylvia dramatically. "At least, not Cousin Cuthbert and Ronald Hampson, but boys like the Fergusson boys. They do nothing but tear about and play tricks on one. They're perfectly hateful! I didn't enjoy my last party there one scrap. They tease me most dreadfully every time I meet them."

"What about?"

"They call me 'The Tragic Muse', because they got hold of one of my pieces of poetry. They made the most dreadful fun of it. And it wasn't tragic at all. It was about the Waltons' baby, and its blue eyes and curls and dimples. I did put dimples, though they read it out pimples! I don't believe they know what tragic means, or a muse either, and I do, because I learnt them in Greek history last month. Mrs. Walton liked the poetry though. She said I must copy it into her album and sign my name to it, and she thought I might be a poetess when I grew up, and she expected it was that which kept me so thin, and had you tried giving me cod-liver oil, because she was sure it would do me good. You're not going to, are you? I took some once at Aunt Louisa's, and it was the most disgusting stuff."

"I don't think you need any more medicine just at present, so we will spare you the cod-liver oil," said Mrs. Lindsay, smiling. "Perhaps Roy and Donald would have forgotten about the poem by this afternoon."

"No, they wouldn't....