Nobody thought of introducing Sylvia to Old Lady Lloyd,
and the Old Lady was glad of it. She sewed finely away,
and listened with all her ears to the girlish chatter which went on
in the opposite corner. One thing she found out--Sylvia's birthday
was the twentieth of August. And the Old Lady was straightway
fired with a consuming wish to give Sylvia a birthday present.
She lay awake most of the night wondering if she could do it,
and most sorrowfully concluded that it was utterly out of
the question, no matter how she might pinch and contrive.
Old Lady Lloyd worried quite absurdly over this, and it haunted
her like a spectre until the next Sewing Circle day.
It met at Mrs. Moore's and Mrs. Moore was especially gracious
to Old Lady Lloyd, and insisted on her taking the wicker rocker in
the parlour. The Old Lady would rather have been in the sitting-room
with the young girls, but she submitted for courtesy's sake--
and she had her reward. Her chair was just behind the parlour door,
and presently Janet Moore and Sylvia Gray came and sat on the stairs
in the hall outside, where a cool breeze blew in through the maples
before the front door.
They were talking of their favourite poets. Janet, it appeared,
adored Byron and Scott.
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