It was like a story book to arrive at a strange house and be carried off
to a beautiful room, with a window-seat from which one could look down
into the most charming of gardens. She opened her bag and disposed her
few belongings and was exploring the bathroom wonderingly (for the bath
at home was an affair of a tin tub to which water was carried by hand)
when a maid appeared with a glass of lemonade and a plate of cakes.
It was while she munched her cakes and sipped the cool lemonade in the
window-seat with an elm's branches so close that she could touch them,
and wondered how near to this room her grandfather had been lodged, and
what the mistress of the house was like, that Mrs. Owen appeared, after
the lightest tap on the high walnut door. Throughout her life Sylvia
will remember that moment when she first measured Mrs. Owen's fine
height and was aware of her quick, eager entrance; but above all else
the serious gray eyes that were so alive with kindness were the chief
item of Sylvia's inventory.
"I thought you were older,--or younger! I didn't know you would be just
like this! I didn't know just when you were coming or I should have
tried to be at home--but there was a meeting,--there are so many things,
child!"
Mrs. Owen did not sigh at the thought of her burdens, but smiled quite
cheerfully as though the fact of the world's being a busy place was
wholly agreeable.
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