they seem quite real, and yet it's only pretending. When I told
Beatrice and Nora Jackson that I knew a dragon lived in their coal
house, they went and told their governess, and she said she was afraid
I was not a truthful child!"

"That was too bad!"

"Yes, wasn't it? I'd rather not go to tea at the Jacksons'. Mrs.
Jackson always says I don't eat half enough. Beatrice and Nora have
four thick slices of plain bread and butter before they begin with
jam or honey, and great basins of bread-and-milk or soup plates full
of porridge for breakfast. I think it's rather rude of people to make
remarks on what you eat when you go out to tea. Don't you?"

"It just depends," said Mrs. Lindsay.

"Well, they don't like it themselves," continued Sylvia. "The last
time the Jacksons were here, when their nurse came to fetch them I
told her I was sure they had enjoyed themselves, for Nora had eaten
four buns and three sponge cakes, and Alfie had ten jam sandwiches and
a piece of Madeira cake. I thought it would please her to hear they
had had so much, when they scold me for eating so little, but she went
quite red in the face and said they were not greedy children anyway."

"It was hardly a happy remark, I am afraid," said Mrs. Lindsay. "You
will be wiser next time."

"People in books are so much nicer than real people," said Sylvia
plaintively. "If I could have a party and invite Little Lord
Fauntleroy, and Alice in Wonderland, and Rose out of _Eight Cousins_
and Rowena and Rebecca, and perhaps Queen Guinevere, and Hereward the
Wake, then I should really enjoy myself."

"Can't you pretend that your friends are heroes and heroines of
romance?" said Mrs. Lindsay, pinching Sylvia's pale cheeks. "You're so
fond of make-believe that it ought to be quite easy to imagine them
princes and princesses."

"It's not so easy as you'd think," replied Sylvia, shaking her head.
"I make up lovely stories about them sometimes, and they just go and
spoil it all. I played one afternoon that Effie was an enchanted
princess, shut up in a magic garden; but she kept on eating green
apples instead of simply looking lovely among the flowers, and when I
put a wreath of roses round her hair she said it had earwigs and
spiders in it, and she pulled it off. I didn't dare to tell her what I
was playing, because she laughs so, but I began a piece of poetry
about her, only it's never got beyond the first verse. Then there's
that boy who lives in the house wi