“What fun this is!” said Sylvia to herself. “I wish Pilot were here. I should like to have a race with him over the snow. Oh, how beautiful is the world when all is said and done! Now, if only I had a proper dress to go to the Castle in!”
She ran home. Her father was standing on the steps of the house. His face looked pinched, blue, and cold; the nourishment of the chop and the fried potatoes had evidently passed away.
“Why, father, you want your tea!” said the girl. “How sorry I am I was not in sooner to get it for you!”
“Tea, tea!” he said irritably. “Always the same cry—food, nothing but food; the world is becoming impossible. My dear Sylvia, I told you that I should not want to eat again to-day. The fact is, you overfed me at lunch, and I am suffering from a sort of indigestion—I am really. There is nothing better for indigestion than hot water; I have been drinking it sparingly during the afternoon. But where have you been, dear, and why did you send Pilot home? The dog made such a noise at the gate that I went myself to find out what was the matter.”
“I did not want Pilot, so I sent him home,” was Sylvia’s low reply.
She was silent for a moment; then she looked up into her father’s face.
“We agreed, did we not,” she said, “that we both were to go our own way. You must not question me too closely. I have done nothing wrong—nothing; I am always faithful to you and to my mother’s memory. You must not expect me to tell you everything, father, for you know you do not tell me everything.”
“Silly child!” he answered. “But there, Sylvia, I do trust you. And, my dear little girl, know this, that you are the great—the very greatest—comfort of my life. I will come in; it is somewhat chilly this evening.”
Sylvia rushed before her father into his sitting-room, dashed up to the fire, flung on some bits of wood and what scraps of coal were left in the coal-hod, thrust in a torn newspaper, set a match to the fire she had hastily laid, and before Mr. Leeson strolled languidly into the room, a cheerful fire was crackling and blazing up the chimney.
“How extravagant——” he began, but when he saw Sylvia’s pretty face as she knelt on the hearth the words were arrested on his lips.
“The child is very like her mother, and her mother was the most beautiful woman on earth when I married her,” he thought. “Poor little Sylvia! I wonder will she have a happier fate!”