1900

The Crawley girls, each wearing an old apron overtop their clothes, sat at the big table in the servants which had been covered with several layers of newspaper and then topped with an old sheet. It was time for the annual coloring of Easter Eggs which tomorrow the girls would try to find in their Easter Egg hunt.

"No Sybil you use the brush to paint a picture" one of her sisters said as Sybil proceeded to dip an egg in one of the bowls of paint. It was two year old Sybil's first time and her sisters were trying to explain to her how to do it.

Edith spent fifteen minutes delicately trying to make flowers on one of the eggs. Mary spent the time making a complex drawing of lines and squares on another egg while Sybil seemed content to just mix as many colors as she could on one egg. Her eyes widened in surprise when she painted over a spot of blue with some yellow paint and it turned green thus causing her to try and make as many colors as she could.

While they worked, they chattered about the egg hunt tomorrow with Mary of course bragging she'd find the most eggs as usual. But what interested Sybil most was their stories of the Easter Bunny and his gifts of chocolate eggs.

xxxxxx

Mary wasn't quite sure what had woken her up. Probably Edith snoring again she thought. Looking over at Edith's bed her first thought was that there was some kind of animal on top of the bed. Alarmed that an animal had made its way up into the nursery, although there was a momentary bit of relief that it was on Edith's bed and not hers, she slowly and quietly sat up to get a better look before realizing in was only her sister's reddish hair, in a long braid, that was spilled across the blanket.

Sighing in relief, although she thought it might have been interesting if it had been an animal, Mary sunk back down into the covers of her bed before immediately rising back up again as she realized there was light in the room. It wasn't the kind of light when morning had finally broken through but an artificial light as if someone had lit a candle. Looking around for the source of this light, Mary saw that the corridor door to nursery was open allowing the dim lights of the hall sconces to penetrate the nursery. Why would that door be open she wondered.

Now sitting upright she looked over at Sybil's bed and saw it was empty. Sybil! Wandering around again! Mary tossed her bedcover over and got out of bed. In the corridor she paused trying to think of where her non quite three year old sister might have gone this time.

She found her sitting in the dark in the library.

"You want to see him too?" Sybil asked.

"See who?"

Sybil rolled her eyes as she gave a side long glance at her older sister. "The Easter Bunny silly."

"The … Easter … Bunny?" Mary could barely spit out the words as she began to chuckle before realizing Sybil was quite serious.

1901

"It's not fair!" Sybil exclaimed as she stomped her foot to emphasize her unhappiness.

"Now Sybil" Robert tried to console his youngest daughter. "Your sisters have been doing this longer so they-"

But Sybil was having none of his excuses and she cut him off in midsentence, stomping her feet and waving her hands. "You shouldn't hide them so high up I'm not as tall as them. How could I see that one on top of the bush or reach that one in the pink tree? It's just not fair!"

Robert was both amused and flabbergasted by Sybil's outburst, amused that she was taking this so seriously and flabbergasted at her display of anger.

1902

Sybil's eyes widen as her mother handed out the straw baskets to each of her daughters.

"Who ate my candy?" she cried as she took the pretty basket trimmed with blue ribbons which earlier had contained three Cadbury Crème eggs.

"No one ate your candy my dear. We just need to use these baskets for the Easter egg hunt."

Sybil narrowed her eyes as she stared at her mother. "I promise Sybil your candy is in the library."

While Sybil and her mother were discussing the missing candy, Edith had spent the time peering around the garden trying to spot some of the hidden eggs. She smirked as she spotted three eggs. Oh this is going to be so easy she thought.

Once she found out the prize for winning the egg hunt was a chocolate bunny, Sybil quickly forgot about her candy eggs, as the three girls were given the signal to start hunting. Edith immediately dashed for the three eggs she had already spied while Mary darted off towards the far corner of the garden.

There were squeals of delight as each girl found an egg. There were different squeals when Sybil and Edith, spotting the same egg at the same time, had a slight tussle with Sybil finally winning due to a most unlady like maneuver. When Edith set her basket down to reach for an egg hidden deep in a bush, Mary had no qualms quietly taking one egg from her sister's basket. Sybil, having seen this, had no qualms doing the same later to Mary.

In their excitement, Mary and Edith accidently backed into each other causing their baskets to tip over and some of their eggs rolled out. As they began arguing with each other as to whose fault it was, Sybil quietly began picking up some of the eggs that had spilled from her sisters' baskets and then dashed away before either Mary or Edith realized what had happened.

Needless to say it was with much surprise to everyone but Sybil that she was the winner of that year's Easter Egg hunt.

1905

"Mama I've been thinking." At Sybil's words, Cora laid her embroidery hoop on the sofa and looked expectantly at her daughter. Her youngest daughter was always a constant source of surprise to Cora. The way Sybil smiled and her eyes glowed, Cora knew she was excited about something.

"I was just thinking that Easter is coming up and I was remembering last year when we were in New York." Cora nodded her head wondering where this was going.

"Well remembering how much fun the Easter Parade was I thought that we could do something like that here."

Of all the things Sybil could have said Cora wasn't expecting this. Certainly nine year old Sybil had to realize how much work such a thing involved. "You want us to have a parade like in New York?"

Sybil laughed. "Not exactly. I just thought that … well I thought what if we have a hat parade among us women here at Downton." She sat down on the sofa next to her mother. "We could involve all the servants and have winners for most outrageous or ugliest or prettiest or … or creative."

Sybil was so excited about her plan that not even her Granny could dampen her spirits when she told them of her plan at tea that afternoon.

"You want us to parade up and down in front of the servants and have them judge our hats?" Granny sounded as if Sybil wanted them to face a firing squad.

"No … no … Granny. It's not like that. All the women at Downton, or at least those that want to, will wear a hat and everyone will vote. We'll have different categories like silliest hat or ugliest hat."

Sybil turned towards her sisters and appealed to them. "Oh Mary and Edith surely you remember how much we laughed at the parade in New York. It will be fun."

"I don't understand your obsession Sybil with fun." Violet spoke up. "And involving the servants well I think … I think … it's-"

Sybil's enthusiasm proved to be contagious and soon all the women, both upstairs and downstairs, were working on their hats. While there was plenty of talking everyone became quite secretive about their own hat.

In the end it turned out to be quite a production. Since it was Sybil's idea, Cora let her decide on the categories and she finally came up with silliest, ugliest and creative. Cora decided the hat parade would be in late afternoon and refreshments, tea and cakes and finger sandwiches would be offered for all. Everyone, including the male staff, was invited to secretly vote for the best hat in the three categories and Sybil even came up with small prizes for the winners.

Despite all her protests of the idea, Violet surprised everyone not only by showing up but also by winning "the silliest" category.

A/N: I actually did a bit of research for this and discovered that the Cadbury Crème Egg was invented in 1875! I remember as a child I always got a new outfit and hat (but nothing silly or outrageous) for Easter. I hope that enthusiasm for these stories isn't waning.