More about Pixie | Page 3

he consoled himself by the reflection that he would be able to make up for temporary deprivations in the years to come.
Mr Trevor sailed off to the East, and Sylvia took up her abode at Number 6 Rutland Road, in an unfashionable suburb in the north of London, and settled down to being a "good industrious girl" with what grace she might. She did not understand Aunt Margaret, and Aunt Margaret felt it a decided trial to have her sleepy home invaded by a restless young creature, who was never so happy as when she was singing at the pitch of her voice, rushing up and down stairs, and playing silly schoolboy tricks; but fate had ordained that they were to live together, and they had jogged along more or less peacefully until that unlucky day when the girl had sickened for her dangerous illness. Then, indeed, Aunt Margaret realised that she had grown to love her wayward charge, and all the manifold demands and inconveniences of illness were swallowed up in anxiety during the first anxious weeks. She allowed not only one, but two of "those dreadful nurses" to take possession of her spare rooms, submitted meekly to their orders, and saw her domestic rules and regulations put aside without a murmur of protest; but when the crisis was safely passed, and recovery became only a matter of time, the old fussy nature reasserted itself, and her eyes were open to behold the dire results of a long illness.
This bright October morning she came stooping into Sylvia's bedroom, a slight woman with a narrow bent back, brown hair smoothed neatly down on each side of a withered, dried-up face, with a patch of red on the cheek bones, and sunken brown eyes roving restlessly to right and left. She wore a black stuff dress, a satin apron with pockets and an edging of jet, and knitted mittens over her wrists--a typical old lady of the ancient type. Yet as she stood beside the bed there was a curious likeness to be observed between her face and the one on the pillow; and Sylvia recognised as much, and felt a thrill of dismay at the thought that some day she, too, would be frail and bent, and wear a cap and mittens, and have rheumatic joints, and attacks of bronchitis if by chance she was so imprudent as to go out without putting on goloshes, a woollen "crossover," and a big silk muffler beneath her mantle. To one- and-twenty it seemed an appalling prospect, and one to be shunted into the background with all possible speed.
"Well, my love, and how are you this morning? Much better, I hear. A good drop in temperature," said Aunt Margaret, pecking her niece's cheek with her lips, and answering her own question without waiting for a reply, as her custom was. "Nurse tells me that you will soon be up again, and I'm sure it is time. This room needs a regular spring cleaning, and as for the new drugget on the landing--three new spots of milk this morning, to say nothing of what has gone before! If I had known you were going to be ill I would have made the old one last another year, for it is sheer waste of money buying new things to have them ruined in six months. The last one was down thirteen years, and looked very little worse than this does now!"
"Father will buy you another. You must put it down as one of the expenses. He won't mind so long as I get better," said the invalid wearily; whereupon Aunt Margaret drew herself up with an air of wounded pride.
"Indeed, my dear, your poor father will have enough to do to pay all the doctors and nurses without being called upon for extras. I am willing to bear my own share, though I will say my stair-carpets have had as much wear and tear in the last two months as in half a dozen years before, and that Nurse Ellen is a most careless creature, she leaves everything in a muddle! If you get up, my dear, you must wear my wadded jacket. I had a young friend--she was the cousin of Sarah Wedderburn, who lived in Stanhope Terrace, and married young Johnson of Sunderland.--You have heard me speak of the Johnsons, who were at school with your Aunt Emma?"
Sylvia blinked her eyelids in a non-committal manner which might be taken either for assent or denial. She was afraid to confess ignorance of the Johnson family, lest Aunt Margaret's love of biography should take a further flight in order to recall Sarah Wedderburn's cousin to her remembrance.
"And what did she do?" she queried weakly. "Don't tell me anything gruesome, please, aunt, because I feel so