The cab stopped at a door in a narrow wall between two houses, and she
got out. Over the wall she saw the green leaves and branches of a few
lime trees which rose from a little garden, and at the end of the garden,
in the far recess between the two side walls, the upper windows of a
little neat white house. Sylvia was charmed with it. She rang the bell,
and a servant came to the door.
"Is Mr. Skinner in?" asked Sylvia.
"Yes," she said, doubtfully, "but--"
Sylvia, however, had made her plans.
"Thank you," she said. She made a sign to the cabman, and walked on
through the doorway into a little garden of grass with a few flowers on
each side against the walls. A tiled path led through the middle of the
grass to the glass door of the house. Sylvia walked straight down,
followed by the cabman who brought her boxes in one after the other. The
servant, giving way before the composure of this strange young visitor,
opened the door of a sitting-room upon the left hand, and Sylvia,
followed by her trunks, entered and took possession.
"What name shall I say?" asked the servant in perplexity. She had had no
orders to expect a visitor. Sylvia paid the cabman and waited until she
heard the garden door close and the jingle of the cab as it was driven
away. Then, and not till then, she answered the question.
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