then,
seeing Mrs. Lindsay in the background, she took fright and dashed away
among the shrubs even more quickly than she had come.

"I wonder what her name is, and if I shall like her!" thought Sylvia.
"She looks nice. Oh! There are some more of them!" as about half a
dozen older girls paused in a game of croquet to glance at the cab,
and several little ones, playing under a tree, pointed eagerly, for
which they were evidently reproved by a teacher who was with them.
There was no time, however, to see further; the cab had drawn up at
the front steps, the cabman was ringing the bell, and Mrs. Lindsay was
collecting small parcels and telling Sylvia to jump out first.

Sylvia felt very serious indeed when they were ushered into the
drawing-room, and Miss Kaye came forward to meet them. She was a tall,
pleasant-looking lady, still fairly young, with a fresh colour, brown
eyes, and thick coils of smooth auburn hair. She had a brisk, cheerful
manner, and was not in the least like the old-fashioned severe sort of
mistress about whom Sylvia had read in _What Katy did at School_ and
_Sara Crewe_, and whom she had been expecting to see. She welcomed her
new pupil kindly, and ordered tea to be brought in at once.

"Our usual schoolroom tea is at five o'clock," she said, "but to-day
you shall have yours here, as I know you will wish to be with your
mother as long as possible. Then, when you have seen your bedroom, and
taken off your things, you will be ready to make friends with some of
your companions."

Sylvia sat very solemnly during tea, listening to the talk between
Miss Kaye and her mother, and though the mistress sometimes addressed
a question to her she was much too shy to answer anything except
"Yes" or "No". She was glad when the ordeal was over and Miss Kaye
suggested that, as Mrs. Lindsay had only a short time left before she
must return to the station, they would like to look through the
school, and see both classrooms and dormitories.

When she tried afterwards to recall her first impressions of
Heathercliffe House she had only a confused remembrance of clinging
very tightly, almost desperately, to her mother's hand, as they were
shown the neat bedrooms, the large empty playroom, the schoolrooms
with their desks and blackboards, and took a peep into the dining-room
where rows of girls of all ages were sitting round two long tables
having tea. Then came the moment which she had been dreading from the
beginning, t