Two dessert dishes were heaped up with delicious cakes--the cakes for which French pastrycooks are justly famed.

There was also a basin full of the Alpine strawberries which Sylvia loved, and of which she always ordered a goodly supply at the Villa du Lac.

Madame Wachner had even remembered to provide the thick cream, which, to a foreign taste, spoils the delicate flavour of strawberries.
They were really very kind people, these Wachners! Looking round the funny little dining-room, Sylvia could not help remembering how uncomfortable she had felt when sitting there alone the day before.

It was hard now to believe that she should have had that queer, eerie feeling of discomfort and disquietude in such a commonplace, cheerful room.

She told herself that there probably had been some little creature hidden there--some shy, wild thing, which maybe had crept in out of the wood.
"And now I will go and make the tea," said Madame Wachner pleasantly, and Sylvia gaily insisted on accompanying her hostess into the kitchen.
"We shall 'ave a nicer tea than that first time we made tea 'ere together," said Madame Wachner jovially.
The young Englishwoman shook her head, smiling.
"I had a very good time that afternoon!" she cried.