Presently Sylvia slipped into the morning room, and
crouching by Miss Lavinia, buried her face in her friend's lap, the
tension at last giving way, and it was some time before she grew quiet
enough to talk coherently, and tell her plan, which is this: she wishes
Miss Lavinia to take the Alton cottage (which is furnished) at the foot
of the Bluffs, for the rest of the season, and live there with her. Then
as soon as Mrs. Latham has gone, and the poor girl has steadied herself,
her father, to whom she has already written, will come, and what she will
do in the autumn will be arranged. Everything is as yet vague; but one
thing she has decided for herself--under no circumstances will she again
live with her mother, and she is now staying quietly in the house and
taking her meals in her room, in order to give the scandalmongers and
gossips as little material as possible.
Lavinia Dorman, who readily consented to do as she asked, says that
Sylvia is brave and heartbroken at the same time, that all her girlish
spontaneity has gone, and she is like a statue.
I am so sorry to have Miss Lavinia go, even a few hundred yards down the
road, it has seemed so good to have an older woman in the house to whom I
can say, "Would you, or wouldn't you?" Martin is also quite upset, and
has stopped writing and begun fumbling and pulling the reference books
about again; but Miss Lavinia says that she is not going to give up the
afternoon reading, for she thinks the history is a work of importance not
to be slighted, and that Sylvia will doubtless take up her own reading
and practising after a time; that while she herself has willingly
consented to chaperon her, she does not intend to give up her own
freedom, nor would it be good for Sylvia if she did.
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