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►
..Cooi^lc
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by Google
"WHO IS SYLVIA?"
3.n.iized by Google
Books by Marion Ames Taggart
B WONDEl-WIKTEl
Nanci and, thi Coooi
Nahcy Pomni's Ofpoi-
n*hcv, tsb doctoi'i
Ndt-«moi™To*n
Out AnxtHODH AND
Lrtlz Gun HonBi
Doctoi'b.Lrxu Gm.
Euim Uiss Aon-
JUXMDLI LtTTLI HOUSI
Jack Hilduts Amomci
Jack HiLDura on tbi
Little Gm HoDsi
Limx WOHIN Club
lAsta. Blue and Roval
Uis( LocaDrVAi
Vim LocsiHVAi'i Ri-
Twtix Gm
" WaolsSiLVUf"
WvHDHAH Gnu
3.n.iized by Google
' OF THE
xWRvy Yt, -■;
3.n.iized by Google
3.n.iiffid by Google
'WHO IS SYLVIA?"
MARION AMES TAGGART
—i —
ILLUSTRATED
BY
VERA CLERE
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1922
^niized by Google
144546B
" i
copyucHT, 191 a, bv
SOUBLXDAY, PAGE & COUPAHy
i BIGHTS SZSKKVED, INCLUDlNa TOAI OP TRANSLATION
TO VOBXICH I.ANGUAGEE, tHCLUSDIG T1
3.n.iized by Google
f
TO
MARTHA MACDONALD
WITH LOVE
"Who i. Sylvia? WhatM«he,
That all our twains commend hetl
Holy, fair and wise is ihe;
The Heaven such grace did lend her.
That she might admired be.
"Is she kind ai she is fair, —
Foi beauty lives with kindneis:
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindneis;
And being helped inhabits there.
"Then to Sylvia let us sing.
That Sylvia is excelling;
She excels each monal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her garlands let us bring."
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CONTENTS
I. "Who is Sylvia?" i
II. "What IS She?" 15
III. " That All Our Swains Commend
Her?" 31
IV. "Holy. Fair " 46
V. " And Wise is She " 59
VI. "The Heaven Such Grace Did Lend
Her" 75
VII. "That She Might Admired Be " . . 94
VIII. "Is She Kind AS She IS Fair?" . . no
IX. "For Beauty Lives With Kindness" 136
X. "Love Doth to Her Eyes Repair" . 143
XI. "To Help Him OF His Blindness" . 159
XII. "And Being Helped " .... 175
XIII. " Inhabits There " 191
XIV. "Then to Sylvia Let Us Sing" . . 206
XV. " That Sylvia IS Excelling " ... 221
XVI. " She Excels Each Mortal Thing " 237
XVII. "Upon the Dull Earth Dwelling" . 254
XVIII. "To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 270
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by Google
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"She turned back and waved her hand; both
hands, to him " Frontispiece
"'Take me home, Lloyd!' Sylvia said, spring-
ing to her feet " 46
"'Is there anything in the world like it?*" . 134
"'Father, I am happy!' cried Sylvia" . . . 222
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"WHO IS SYLVIA?"
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'fVho Is Sylviaf
CHAPTER I
"Who Is Sylvia?"
'TpALL, graceful, and remarkably pretty, her
■*■ "shining morning face" full of a nameless
charm, radiating happiness, Sylvia Bell came down-
stairs and out on the piazza on the morning after her
eighteenth birthday.
Her adoring Irish terrier, who had been lying with
his nose stretched out on his paws, scowling from the
intentness with which he listened for her step,
jumped up to meet her in a rapture so keen that no
words could have expressed it, consequently his
whines answered as well as words to welcome her.
"The top of the morning to you, Charles O'Malley
the Irish Dragoon 1" cried Sylvia, heartily returning
his caresses. "That was a fine party we had yester-
day entirelyl I'm not a bit tired after it, thank you.
I'd be ready for another in three days — but not if I
had to be a year older in three daysl I might have
an unbirthday party, did you say? True, O'Malley;
you've been reading 'Alice', or you wouldn't have
3.n.iiffid by Google
2 "Who Is Sylvia?"
thought of it! Caught you that time! Oh, what a
dear thing you arel That wasn't a particularly
funny joke, yet how heartily you laugh at it! It
doesn't take much to make you and me laugh, does
it, my broth of a hoy f That shows how happy we
are, dog of the world ! But we know we're happy.
And we're not infirm, not one bit, although you are
five years old and I am eighteen; I'm afraid five is
older for a terrier than eighteen is for a — terror!"
She turned away from her dog, softly whistling:
" Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms."
Her father was coming downstairs and Sylvia's face
grew still brighter as she stepped back to the door
and waited for him, leaning against the casement.
"I don't quite, altogether, fully believe that,
Fatherums, do you? Good morning, nicest of
scientists!" she said.
"Good morning, dearest of scientists' assistants,"
retorted her father kissing her. "Don't believe
what? That I am nicest of scientists? Certainly
not!"
Sylvia gave his arm a little shake.
"You don't have to believe that! 'Faith is a
virtue infused into our souls by which we believe
without doubting' — Oh, I didn't mean to be irrever-
ent! Well, then! You believe on faith what your
senses do not reveal to you. So you don't believe that
you are the nicest of scientists; your sense — common
sense, anyway! — shows you that," she ended her
definition triumphantly.
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"ff^ho Is Sylvia?" 3
"Nothing of the sort; I believe it on faith precisely;
on your authorityl" retorted Mr. Bell. "What is it
you don't Believe, then?"
"I forget," said Sylvia, frowning. "Oh, yesi If
you'd paid attention to my beau-ti-ful whistling
you'd have known, sir! I don't believe the man in
that song. I'm awfully afraid that if 'all those
endearing young charms' had faded away like fairy
gifts, that she would not 'still have been adored as
that moment she was,' and his heart's every wish
would not 'entwine itself still around the dear ruins.'
I s'pect he thought he meant it, but I'm afraid he
would have got tired of ruins. What do you think,
rather-nice Father?"
"Sylvia, why this dawning cynicism? Why this
doubt of human nature's constancy?" demanded
Mr. Bell in pretended consternation. "Is this the
result of attaining eighteen, or is it the party?"
"I think they like them pretty, Daddy," replied
Sylvia, demurely.
Mr. Bell threw back his head to laugh.
"True, my dear; they del But they also like them
bright, and true, and generally all-around sweet and
agreeable to have about. You never have struck
me as particularly interested in calling forth nor
retaining admiration. Anything new?" Mr. Bell
hinted.
"Nothing tellable, or I'd tell you; I tell you every-
thing, silly and sensible," said Sylvia. "Well, then,"
she added, taking a sudden resolve to tell the untell-
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4 "ff^ho Is Sylvia?"
able, " it's that new boy from New York, Jack Jarvis.
He took a fancy to my dear little Ruth Hapgood. I
hadn't met him till yesterday, and then, just because
Well, Daddy, my gown was becoming to me ! And
Jack Jarvis hovered; didn't remember Ruth, just
because I was a new girl and he thought I looked
nice I "
Her father's eyes, resting on her full of pride and
admiration of her exquisite charm, her fineness of
feature and expression, her vivacity and freedom
from damaging self-consciousness, said for him that
he hardly blamed Jack Jarvis. But all that his lips
said was: "Perhaps when he sees you a second time
and you are less a novelty, he will not 'hover,' But
will return to his admiration of Ruth."
"He'd better," declared Sylvia with resolute com-
pression of her lips. "I won't have it. The ideal
Ruth is a perfect little peach, not tearingly pretty,
but quite pretty enough; I love the way she looks
at you, and she has an adorable nose, and lovely
eyes! And, anyway, she is a darling! Jack Jarvis
thrice over ought to be glad to be allowed to dust
her shoes — even suede shoes, that you can't really
dust! And, what's more, I won't have it I And what's
still more I'll make it quite clear to him that Sylvia
Bell is a cross and crabbed maiden lady, who doesn't
care for his weathercock admiration!"
"I suppose you can't hang and quarter a young
chap for admiring one girl sincerely and then admir-
ing another still more, and quite as sincerely? You
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"Who Is Sylvia ?" 5
know this Jarvis is new 'in our midst,' as the news-
papers would say, as if we were cannibals! — and his
honour is not involved in continued fidelity to the
first girl he met," hinted Mr. Bell, not daring to be-
tray how amused he was by Sylvia's unmistakable
disgust.
"What you are dying to say, my proud parent, is:
'How could he admire any one else when my daughter
is in sight?' All very fine for you to look at it — and
me — that way, but no one shall drop my little Ruth
for me! Not that it matters; Ruthie is jiot crying
for admiration, but any boy who snubs her for ine
must do it over my dead body ! " declared Sylvia with
a laugh, but nevertheless in earnest.
"Well, dear, I should think that would effectually
put an end to your rivalry! Are we to breakfast this
morning?" Sylvia's father suggested.
" Poor little 'bused Daddums I" Sylvia said. " Did
it starve to death on its own piazza, almost quite to
death, while its selfish child discussed nonsense?"
Then, with a new swift realization of what she had
often felt before, Sylvia said, tucking her hand into
her father's arm, preparatory to a trip dining-roonv
ward; "How dear you are. Father, always to under-
stand, never to tire of what interests me, nor to find it
triviall What a lucky girl I am! And all the
time the laboratory is waiting for us, with the Great
Experiment under way!"
"My only Sylvia, I have often told you that what
interests you, interests me, without merit or effort on
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6 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
my part. How could it be otherwise, since you are
my one possession ? And important as I feel that our
laboratory research is, what experiment can possibly
compare with the truly Great Experiment you and I
are making in turning my little girl into a useful,
noble womanF" Mr. Bell asked.
"It's beyond anything to knowthat'strue. Father,"
said Sylvia, in a low voice.
An instant later she was slipping her hand out of
her father's arm, with an excuse for deserting him,
and was running through the house calling: "Cassiel
Cassan-dra Bil — lings! The family is arrived, all
the way from the sunny south, the front piazza! Is
there a fine worm for these early birds? Ugh-h!
If there is I do not want it ! I get enough of worms
in the lab., those squeeshy, unfascinating sea cu-
cumbers!"
Cassandra Billings, devoted to the grown Sylvia as
she had been to the motherless baby who had fallen
to her care, the care to which Sylvia owed much of
her physical strength and not a little of her moral
fibre, came out of the kitchen to answer Sylvia. She
was gaunt and tall, her colour and thinness suggested
that she had been cut out of parchment, but, as
Sylvia said, "all her expansion had been inward; her
whole life was bound up in devotion to Mr. Bell and
the little girl whom she had watched over and reared.
" If a chop would do as well as an early worm, Miss
Sylvia," Cassandra said, "there may be one ready
in about seven minutes. Mind ; I don't say there will
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"Who Is Sylvia?" 7
be, but I do hope there may be. If your father' II
eat his strawberries kind o' slow, connections may
be close. I got some good berries last night; crate
just come in. But as true's I'm standin' here this
one's the worst yet, strong's that statement is."
Cassandra lowered her voice and came nearer to
Sylvia. " I was goin' to have those little sausages for
breakfast, turned my back on the kitchen long
enough to take a look into the ice box, and she
burned 'em to a crisp! To — a — crisp, Sylvia Bell!
Talk of early worms! That's about what those
sausages looked like when I came back — gnurly
wormsl Little, and shrivelled, and black!" Cas-
sandra chanted her adjectives in crescendo of pitch
and. accent. "This one's the worst of all. I said
I couldn't stand her predecessors, but I can't so much
as stand tryin' to stand Norah Leiry."
Sylvia laughed, though she instantly checked
herself. Since Susie, the girl who had gone away to
be married two and a half years before, there had
been what seemed like a moving-picture film of a
procession of assistants to Cassandra marching
through the Bell kitchen. Sylvia was used to
Cassie's announcing that the one who chanced to be
halted for that moment was the worst of all. Cas-
sandra was kind, but Cassandra's requirements in the
unfortunate young person who worked under her
would have been attained only by a composite of
Psyche's industry, Athena's wisdom, and Sabrina's
spotlessness "sitting under the glassy, cool, translucent
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8 "Who Is Sylvia?"
wave." Sylvia was often moved to pity the hapless in-
cumbents; several times she had felt sure that she
could have managed them, and managed with them
satisfactorily, but she knew that interference would
make matters worse, so she stifled her opinions and
contented herself with charitable suggestions, as
now.
"I've thought Norah looked bothered, Cassie,"
she said, gently. "Poor Uttle thing, so far from
home and all her kindred! I'm sorry about the
sausages, but they are not an irreparable loss; it
only sets breakfast late a few moments. I'd burn
sausages, too, if I were worried."
"And you'd find excuses for people if it was the
house they'd burned down! You don't know that
the girl's bothered, for that matter. I fed those
sausages to O'Malley and he sniffed at 'em good
before he'd touch 'em. I do believe he thought I
was tryin' to feed him black lead pencils!" said
Cassandra, scornfully.
This time Sylvia's laugh rang out frankly. "In
the meantime the chops may bum," she suggested.
"Jerusalem Halifax, gentleman ! That's the truth;
they may!" cried Cassie, rushing away.
Sylvia joined her father in the dining room, still
laughing, but she only laid her finger wamingly on
her lips when he looked his inquiry as to what amused
her.
It was agreeable to find the chops unbumed when
Cassie brought them in a few minutes later, and
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"ff^ko Is Sylvia?" 9
Sylvia announced that she felt ready and fit for work
when she had disposed of her share of them.
Her father's laboratory — in which he had won
victories in research work and an honourable name
for himself among contemporaneous scientists, and
in which the experiment from which he hoped the
greatest result of his life was now under way in
successive stages of experiments — stood but a short
distance from the house, down a well-trodden
gravelled walk, under noble old elms planted by
past generations of the Bell family. Short as the
distance was to the laboratory, Sylvia took her
father's arm for the walk, but when she crossed the
threshold she became wholly the laboratory assistant,
which it was her chief pride and joy to be.
"Good morning, Eben," she said to the morose
man whom her father employed to do what might be
called the muscular work of the place, and whose
jealous objection to Mr, Bell's admission of his
daughter to the laboratory, three years before, Sylvia
had completely overcome by her deft work and
sunny ways. "Good morning, Eben. We are a
little late, but the early rising mornings are only
begun. I wish I knew a way to be here at work and
out on the bay in my boat at the same time. I
suppose I shall begin sailing before breakfast, get
up by four o'clock. How are our patients in the
tanks?"
Sylvia had been enveloping herself in her laboratory
uniform, pulling on her protecting sleeves, tying the
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lo "Who Is Sylvia?"
strings of her full-length pinafore with business-like
jerks, Eben Tompkins watching the process with
the engrossed attention which he daily gave it.
"Our patients^ Miss Sylvia," he said, slowly, "are
to the naked eye exactly as they was when you last
investigated 'em. In Statue Co., I think is correct,
meanin' as I take it, remainin' fixed, like a statue,
yet in their own company, all together, I believe it was
once so explained to me; from the Latin, as I re-
member, but I'm ready to be set right."
"Not for the world, Eben," said Sylvia, with
admirable gravity. "The usual translation is not
nearly as picturesque, and it comes to much the same
thing."
She went down the long room, with a slight glance
at her father as she passed him, to make sure that
he had not missed Eben's erudition, and bent over the
farthest of the lineof tanks that stood along the wall,
on one side of the laboratory. With an absorbed
intentness of expression she lifted starfish from the
tanks, carefully measured each one, made a note of
her measurements on a chart which she kept, record-
ing each day's results of similar measurements. Its
lines ran up into varying points like the record of a
fever chart, or the profile of mountain peaks in an
outhne drawing of comparative geographical aspects
of countries. The starfish experiments Sylvia en-
joyed. It was interesting to watch the variation of
their development under differing conditions of food
and environment, conditions that were to lead to
3.n.iiffid by Google
"IVko Is Sylvia?" ii
valuable conclusions as to what best contributed to
the building up of cells, the basis of all animal tissues
and life. The starfish were pleasant to handle, but
Sylvia had to conquer repeatedly her repugnance to
the holothurians which were her father's delight,
being excellent mediums for his experiments.
"Squeeshy old things!" Sylvia said, inaudibly,
as she often said, when she came to the fat, black,
moist, and unlovely sea cucumbers tn their tanks.
" But you do your duty nobly contributing to
science, and I will do my duty by you."
The holothurians betrayed neither gratitude nor
pride as Sylvia proceeded to investigate them and
record her results.
When her task of record-making was finished for
that morning she went over to the long table that
stood on the other side of the room from the tanks,
and fell to colouring specimens for the microscope
slides, with complete absorption in this part of her
daily morning work.
The hquids which were to indicate and emphasize
the variations in the cellular tissues she applied with
deft Bngers, working rapidly and accurately. She
was a lovely picture in the clean, bare room, itself an
incongruous yet effective setting for her youthful
beauty, the strong white light of the room in no wise
detracting from the perfection of her colouring and
the texture of her oval cheek, and of her slender,
graceful throat rising out of its ugly laboratory
pinafore quite unharmed by its lack of adornment.
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12 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"Whistles are blowing for the noon hour, as-
sistant," said Mr. Bell after three and a half hours of
intent work by father and daughter, carried on in
absolute silence. Sylvia looked up to greet this
little jesting fonnula of his with a smile.
"Just give me ten extra minutes. Chief," she be^ed.
" I'll have this slide ready in eight more, I think."
She was as good as her word. In eight minutes by
her father's watch, timing her, Sylvia finished the
tinting of the specimen on which she was working,
and she used her two minutes, left over from the ten
for which she had asked, in straightening the work
table. Then she arose, raised both arms over her
head in a frank, refreshing, and thoroughly little-
girlish stretch.
"My! Don't tell me that science broadens one;
it's fearfully cramping!" she said. "Father, mine,
how is the Experiment coming on?"
" Daughter, mine, it's coming on all right, as far as
advance is concerned. Impossible to tell whether it
will prove what I set out to prove or not; to tell yet,
I mean," Mr. Bell replied, helping Sylvia with a
refractory pinafore string midway between her
shoulders.
"Oh, dear! Who ever first said patient waiters
were no losers? They are; they lose — patience!"
Sylvia laughed at herself. "I'm crazy to know the
result."
"So long a laboratory assistant and still impatient
of a laboratory's slow processes! When will you learn
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"^Ao Is Sylvia?" 13
to be one of the patient waiters, Sylvia?" her father
reproached her.
"Not at eighteen!" Sylvia cried. "I think people
can't really be patient waiters till most of their
patient waiting is behind them."
Mr. Bell opened the laboratory door and stepped
aside, waiting with bent head for Sylvia to precede
him.
"I will humbly follow a philosopher with such
deep experience of life," he said.
"You foolish father I Even O'Malley would know
that! I'll race you to the house; beat you to iti
Good-bye, Eben, for to-day," Sylvia called back as
she sprang after her father, who accepted her chal-
lenge as soon as it was spoken, and to whom she could
afford to allow no start, young and long and strong of
limb though she was.
They reached the foot of the steps warm and dis-
hevelled and neck-and-neck, with O'Malley added to
them, wildly cavorting and barking.
Cassandra Billings met them in the doorway, her
face expressing that mixture of disapproval and ad-
miration which one who never has played accords
to the childish ones whom she loves but cannot
understand.
"The Hapgoods called up to say they can go sailing
with you this afternoon. Miss Sylvie. Something or
other happened that lets 'em go, after all. I couldn't
get what 'twas; that listenin' Mrs. Hinderson had her
receiver down," Cassie said.
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14 "ffho Is Sylvia?"
Sylvia laughed, and patted her arm soothingly.
It infuriated Cassie that one of their neighbours made
"a shadowy third" at all the Bells' telephone talks.
It only partly assuaged Casste's feelingsto change her
name from Henderson to "Hinderson," as more ap-
propriate to their half-defeated messages.
"Never mind, Cassie dear; the main thing is that
Ruth and Lloyd will go. I was going to be a good
girl, and call in line raiment on that new girl! Now
I can hurry into old duds and go sailing. Isn't that
just like having a white china mug, lettered in gilt:
To A Good Child' given you! I can't see why
people say this is an unjust world! I'll be ready for
lunch in five minutes, Cassie, so don't say what you
were going to say!"
Sylvia rushed upstairs singing at the top of her
voice one of the vigorous old sailor chanteys which
her great friend, the retired seaman, Gabriel Gaby^
had taught her.
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER II
"What Is SheF"-
"^JOW," announced Sylvia after lunch, her
■^ ^ father having returned alone to the labora-
tory, "now, Cassie, my tried and true, Fm going
to don my briny clothes."
"It's true that I'm tried right enough," said Cas-
sandra with the look that one could have imagined
worn by the banqueters under the sword of Damocles
when — or if — another guest had jested beneath it.
"I suppose there's no more use appealin' to you this
time than any other time you went out sailin', but
why under the canopy, Miss Sylvia Bell, you can't
look like Miss Sylvia Bell I'd like to be told F You
might dress plain, but not "
"With this other kind of plainness, like the
hippopotamus'? Don't you remember that story
I told you about the dear old woman at the zoo
looking at the hippopotamus, and saying; 'Ain't
he plain?'? I love that story," Sylvia chuckled.
"Cassie, dear, I've got to wear the disreputable
things you hate, or I'd capsize! If I tried to look
young-ladylike and picturesque I couldn't — well, I'd
handle my boat in a young-ladylike manner, dis-
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l6 "fTko Is Sylvia?"
grace my good old Gabriel Gaby-teacher, and go
down to Davy Jones's locker, blushing! You don't
want me to Be a mortified ghost? Believe me,
Cassie, there's something in it. They say the hand-
somer the sash the poorer the serve and return,
in tennis, and I know that the shabbier the togs, the
better the sailor. Don't mind, poor Cassie I Ruth
and Lloyd are used to me, and to-morrow, at the
party, I'll do you credit."
Sylvia went to her room, divested herself of her
becoming morning gown, Brushed and knotted tight
back from her face her wealth of fine brown hair, that
shone with a soft lustre, Hke a horse chestnut. She
pulled down over her sleek head a khaki skirt to
which salt water could do no harm, having already
done its worst, and followed the skirt with a white
middy blouse, spotless, but with its blue collar and
cuffs faded by many washings.
All the while she kept up what she called a duet
with herself, performed By simultaneously humming
and whistling. The duet afforded Sylvia more
pleasure than it would have given an audience, had
there been one, but she got out of it a sort of empty-
minded satisfaction which seemed not unlike the
satisfaction a fly gets out of humming against a win-
dow pane.
Finally Sylvia pulled down over her hair a round
soft felt hat, its brim turned down, its blueness
whitened by long exposure, and this she did with a
sigh of utter content, for no boy loves a shabby old
3.n.iiffid by Google
"fFhai Is She?" 17
soft felt better than Sylvia did; she never wore any
other sort of hat, saihng. On the whole, Cassie was
right; Sylvia had succeeded in transforming herself
from a wondrously pretty and dainty girl into a
figure that might have been taken for almost any-
thing in the world but that. And yet a second glance
at her as she turned to run downstairs would have
proved that not all her indifference to appearance
and choice of shabby clothes could totally eclipse a
charm that was essentially Sylvia.
O'Malley found her good to look upon when she
came out and whistled to him. Nothing Sylvia
could wear, nothing she could do, not even had she
unexpectedly abused him, could have made O'Mal-
ley's worship of her waver, but best of all he Hked to
see her in this uniform, for it foretold a sail, and
O'Malley never got enough of sailing.
"Surest thing that ever was, O'Malley! We are
going sailing!" Sylvia saluted her dog, bending down
to him in recognition of his fidelity to the law that
forbade him to jump up on her, however strong his
emotions. "I should not have named you for the
Irish Dragoon, but for a sailor. If I'd known how
you'd turn out, my blessed pup, I'd have called you
Barry, after the Revolutionary Irish Commodore!
Too late, dog of the world! Doubly too late, for
there are Ruth and Lloyd."
Sylvia crossed the lawn to meet her friends, who
were taking a short cut toward her. Ruth Hapgood
was a tiny girl with a sweet face, pretty in a delicate,
3.n.iiffid by Google
i8 "Who Is Sylvia r"
womanly little way of her own; a face cut with the
fineness of a shell cameo, tinted as beautifully as an
arbutus. Her appearance bore out the facts of her
character. Ruth was the sort of small person whom
one might easily overlook in a crowd, but once seen,
her sweet face grew upon one, and so did the qualities
of her mind. Not a brilliant girl, but a thoroughly
lovable one, the sort of girl spoken of by her friends,
justly and emphatically, as "a nice girl."
Ruth's cousin Lloyd had been for two years giving
his attention to growing. He had shot up into a
stalwart boy, lacking his full six feet of height by less
than half an inch and broadening as he grew tall, till
he had attained splendid proportions and because of
these proportions looked older than his years. He
had an honest face, not handsome, but most attrac-
tive; it met the world truthfully, fearlessly; looked
good-tempered, clean, and kind, yet had a set of jaw
and line of lips that meant courage and determi-
nation.
In live minutes* talk with him one would have
gauged all the essential facts of Lloyd Hapgood's
make-up; that he had a good brain, but was not a
genius; that hc' could be depended upon to any ex->
tent for sane judgments and efficient action. That
he had an extraordinary capacity for dogged loyalty
and truthfulness was the first thing about him that
any one meeting him for the first time instinctively
felt.
Sylvia was fonder of these two friends than of any
3.n.iiffid by Google
"fFkat Is She?" 19
of the young people of her neighbourhood. This
would he the fourth summer and the third year in
which Ruth and Lloyd had spent the summer at
Paxton-on-the-Sea with their childless aunt, Mrs.
Leveritt, who to an increasing extent, since the
cousins' presence in her house had brought Sylvia
also into it, had supplied to the motherless girl the
mother-lack. Sylvia's face brightened as she saw
the big boy and the tiny girl coming toward her.
She waved her arm Uke a semaphore, though they
were within hailing distance and she was shouting:
"Hal-loH}, Big and Little One I So glad you could
go, after all!"
" So are we," began Ruth. " We didn't seem really
to be back here till we'd been out with you, and "
"And we Uke to be out with youj it's tiresome to
keep on so monotonously pleasant year in and year
out," Lloyd interrupted his cousin.
"H'ml I wonder what you'd do if you really did
fall out with me I" remarked Sylvia, apparently to
O'Malley whom she patted as she spoke. "Lloyd
Hapgood, you are the biggest thing, really 1 When
you were coming, just now, you loomed. That's the
one word for it; you loomed I Nothing makes me
reaUze how old I — we all are getting as you do when
you first get here and I haven't been seeing you. I
can't bear to grow up, Lloyd!"
"Well, don't do it; you never will grow up as far as
I have, though you're not a stunted plant youiself,
Sylvia," said Lloyd, amused. "We're all showing
3.n.iiffid by Google
20 "Who Is Sylvia?"
the bleak effects of time — though I can't see that you
feel 'em. In those unlovely but well-beloved togs,
Tinker Bell, you look just exactly as you did that
first summer when I nicknamed you Tink, and we
hunted the counterfeiter in his lair."
"Yet I do feel the effect of time, and I'm not quite
the same, and you are a freshman "
Sylvia got no farther.
"Great Scott, TinkI" Lloyd interrupted her with
a disgust partly feigned, but to a degree genuine.
"What is the use? Sophomore. That's all the
credit a fellow gets for hustling! Didn't I hustle to
please you, too? I'd have been a fresh, this year if
you hadn't begged me to get a move on and not waste
time. Republics are never grateful Say, Tink,
are you a republic, by the way? I think all men
are equal in your eyes."
"I'm a limited monarchy, decidedly hmited, but
a monarchy. And as a monarchy is supposed to
issue orders I command you to start down to the
beach. But, honestly, Lloyd, I beg your pardon!
It was pretty bad to call you a fresh, in your second
year! I said fresh., but upon my honour I had
sophomore in mind. And, as the Irish say, *a slip of
the tongue is no fault of the mind.' Don't the Irish
say that, my Irish terrier?" Sylvia ended with an
appeal to O'Malley accompanied by the hug with
which all such apj^als to her dog were punctuated.
"Come along, crew; why do we waste time talking
nonsense here?"
3.n.iiffid by Google
"What Is She?" 21
"Where could we go to save time talking non-
sense?" inquired Ruth, unexpectedly. "But come.
It was only you and Lloyd delaying us, Sylvia; I
haven't wasted a second talking nonsense."
"You couldn't, Ruthie — speck! You're just a pill-
box of common sense," declared Sylvia, tucking the
small girl under her arm and leading the way to the
beach.
The path over the dunes which skirted the beach,
rising steeply from it, was as delightful a walk now as
it had been to Ruth and Lloyd when they had Brst
seen it; as bordered with impressionistic colours in
the wiry grass; as Blled with the sense of freedom
and faery, as if one were walking on the edge of the
sky, colour and light overhead, colour and fresh
growth below, with a brisk breeze to unite earth and
sky, which mingled their boundaries beyond.
The path descended precipitously to the beach,
terminating where the duneside itself ended. At the
foot the path delivered its travellers to the beach
just above a tiny shack in which Gabriel Gaby, once
a sailor, now merely a philosopher, lived in a solitude
shared only by his cat. Mate.
Gabriel was, as usual, sunning himself in front of
his residence; so was Mate. But Gabriel did not
hear the approaching footsteps; Mate did. Catching
the patter of a dog's feet she looked up, prepared to
run. Then she recognized CMalley, and having
been taught by experience that Sylvia could be
trusted to curb any anti-cat tendencies in her dog.
3.n.iiffid by Google
22 "Who Is Sylvia?"
Mate seated herself again in precisely her former
position and resumed her occupation of watching a
sand spider, occasionally stirring it up with delicate
pats of her white paw when it lagged in its duty of
entertaining her.
"Gabriel Gaby, awake from your slumbers," sang
Sylvia, and the rotund little sailor jumped to his
feet, his small, bluest of blue eyes gleaming with the
pleasure that the sound and sight of Sylvia always
brought to him.
"I was not asleep, Sylvie," he denied her musical
allegation. "Don't you think a man can meditate
better, Lloyd, when he closes his eyes an' shuts out
the turmoil of the world, so to speak F"
Lloyd threw an eloquent glance over the deserted
beach.
"Turmoil of the world ? Yes, Gabriel, if I could
shut it out, I'd want to, if I were going in for real
deep, meditative meditation," he said.
Gabriel Gaby chuckled. "Well, call it a cat-nap,
if you want to," he generously conceded. "It's
meditatin', anyhow. I get a sight of wisdom when
I'm neither awake nor asleep. I've got the notion
that a man's mind's something like his soup kittle;
you get the best strength outer it when 'tain't
boilin^ too hard, nor yet set off altogether; when it
simmers right along, not showin' much turbulosity,
so to speak, but extractin' the goodness — simmerin's
the word." Gabriel glanced at Sylvia for approval.
^'Sounds most convincingly true, Gabriel, but I'm
3.n.iiffid by Google
"What Is She?" 23
not an authority," she said, promptly. " I always seem
to be tremendously awake, or tremendously asleep."
"No doubt o' that, Sylvia, no sort o' doubt o'
that!" Gabriel Gaby chuckled. "But you're not
a retired seaman yet; you're still on your first voyage,
an' on the first tack of it at that! Was you goin'
sailin' now? But I see you've got your sea-goin'
rig on."
"Yes. And I want my tiller. Did you get it
done?" asked Sylvia,
"Well, I will! Qean forgot it. Yes, I fixed it.
Wa'n't much wrong with it; loose, that's about all."
Gabriel went into his house and came out with the
tiller. "Here you are, Captain Sylvia, an' a good
voyage an' safe port to you."
"Thank you, Gabriel. What should I ever do
mthout you?" said Sylvia, but the question was an
acknowledgment, not a query to be answered, for
Sylvia was starting down the beach on a little nm as
she asked it; she never had outgrown her habit of
running where another girl would walk.
The changes of time were marked by Lloyd's
unfastening Sylvia's tender, in which they were to go
out to the sailboat, and running it down the beach.
When she had first known him, and had been but
fifteen, Sylvia revelled in independence. Now, at
eighteen, she had learned that young masculine
creatures like to render service, to feel that a pretty
girl depends upon them, so Sylvia stood back and
let Lloyd serve her, though she was entirely able to
3.n.iiffid by Google
24 "ff'ho Is Sylvia r"
do her own work, and it took considerable self-
discipline to play the role of a dependent.
Lloyd also rowed out to the pretty catboat bowing
and half turning in the small waves rippling around
her, though Sylvia's fingers tingled to get hold of the
oars.
"Nice boy to want to," she thought as she
caught at the gunwale of her sailboat, welcoming the
chance to do something, "but I'll get up early one of
these mornings and get some old-time sails, with no
boy to bother me!"
Sylvia drew an unbendable line of prohibition on
the re«t of the tasks. No one could handle her boat
for her; she resolutely refused to give her over into
other hands. She unfurled the sail — though Lloyd
helped with this; hauled it up, her trained eye on the
peak to insure no sagging; Btted the repaired tiller
into its socket, and jammed it down hard, trying not
to mind that Lloyd had made the tender fast to the
mooring, and had cast off.
O'Malley went carefully, stepping along the deck
to his post in the bow beside the mast. The sheet
tautened, the boat lay over prettily, and they were
off.
"Now,thenl" breathed Sylvia, in supreme content,
pulling her hat down farther over her head and
stretching out her slender length of limb with a
boyish movement of physical well-being.
"You do Hke it, don't you, Sylvia?" said Ruth,
watching her smiHngly.
3.n.iiffid by Google
"JFkat Is She?" 25
"Like it? Like sailing? Why, Ruth, that's no
word for it t I am sailing. I mean it is part of me.
I've never lived anjrwhere else but beside this
blessed ocean and its inlets. My boat and I are one,
like a centaur, don't you know?" Sylvia tried to
express what words failed to express — ^words being
extraneous while her sea-love was intrinsic.
"You stick to The Walloping Window Blind, don't
you?" suggested Lloyd. "Thought you might set
up a new craft this season."
"What for?" demanded Sylvia. "Gabriel Gaby
— of course Father, but that is natural — even Gabriel
talked a new boat to me. Why should I have one ?
The Walloping Window Blind is just as good as new.
I had her when I was thirteen; five years, six sum-
mers, I've had her. That constitutes an old friend-
ship. She's as pretty a model as you could find; she's
been kept scraped and painted and overhauled; there's
nothing wrong with her. She's the size I like, and —
well, why should I throw over the good little cat ? "
Sylvia patted the graceful little catboat, whose
ridiculous name she had bestowed to conceal her
inordinate pride in owning and sailing a boat when
she was a little girl, and Ruth and Lloyd looked as
though they found this loyalty worthy of the girl
whom they both admired beyond all others.
"I hope you'll stick to all old friends. Captain
Sylvia, always. What about that young medical
meddler. Doctor Ritchie?" hinted Lloyd.
Sylvia was annoyed with her circulation; she felt
3.n.iiffid by Google
26 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
it mount into her cheeks, and the old hat did not
come down over her entire face I
" Precisely," she said, however.
"Eh? What do you mean by 'precisely'?" Lloyd
demanded.
"I mean 'precisely'! What about him?" Sylvia
repeated.
"He's hovering, Tink!" Lloyd suggested.
Sylvia shoved her shabby hat back with a sweep of
her hand and faced him.
"Lloyd Hapgood, if you want to spoil a nice
sail, dandy breeze and everything right, say so,
and I'll put about," she said, disgustedly. "That's
all nonsense, of course. No good my pretending
not to know what you mean, but it's nonsense.
Anyway, if a girl's eighteen I suppose she's got
to set her teeth and stand it. Goodness knows
I'm not looking for that sort of trouble I Doctor
Ritchie — you all will call him doctor, but he has
two more years before he gets his degree — is fine; I
like him. But he isn't 'hovering' I Or if he is, it's
only to fill up vacation time, and he knows I loathe
silliness! I can talk lab. to him; he understands all
It the experiments. It's starfish and sea cucum-
, messy old holothurians, as much as met"
ia stopped to laugh, then, being an honest
ia, she added: "Anyway, Lloyd, I can't help
nd I wish you wouldn't be horrid and talk about
I'd tike to go along like Kim, and be a little
id to all the world for a long, long rime yet."
3.n.iiffid by Google
"mat Is She?" 27
"Poor pretty Sylvia! They won't dare let a girl
like you go along unmolested in your friendly way
too long," said tittle Ruth.
" Ruth, you're such a morsel, yet you seem older
than I do! You've grown up a lot this past year,"
said Sylvia, glad to turn the talk upon Ruth.
"Don't you think that's because I don't do any-
thing but girlish things, and you have so many
outlets, are so free and daring and outnsf-doorsy that
it keeps you boyishly young? And then there's all
your laboratory interest," said Ruth.
"But I sew and do home — house — things!" pro-
tested Sylvia.
"The point is, not what you do, nor what you are,
Sylvia," said Lloyd, doggedly. "The point is: Are
you going to stick to old friends, like them best, as
you stick to The Walloping Window Blind ? I don't
know how I, how Ruth and I, can stand it if you go
and let these new ones get in on the ground floor, and
we have to take what's left of you."
Sylvia jumped up to bring her boat around. She
turned on Lloyd vigorously.
"You may as well wait till you see symptoms of
it, Lloyd Hapgood," she said with asperity. " Such
a nuisance! Here we're exactly the chums we al-
ways were and you fuss I When I do so want to have
a good time, just the same old good time, nothing
spoiling it! Why, we're almost like one family;
you can't tell which are cousiner cousins, you and
Ruth, or you and Ruth and I! And your blessed
3.n.iiffid by Google
28 "Who Is Sylvia?"
aunt is even more like my aunt than she is like yours,
because I haven't any mother! And you talk about
newcomers!"
"Well, you see " began Lloyd, but stopped.
He realized that it would never do to hint that
this family aiFection had its drawbacks.
"Glad you stopped, Lloyd," said Sylvia. "Now
I'm coming about on another tack. At the same
time, leave that silly stuff, and we don't go back to it;
do you see?"
"Aye, aye. Captain Sylvia," said Lloyd, so good
naturedly and so humbly that Sylvia was appeased.
"Poor Lloyd!" she said, settling down on her
seat beside the tiller and drawing in the sheet
till the sail "peaked up," full to the top. "I'm a
vixen!"
"Not a bit of it. You're Dear Lady Disdain,
instead of Sylvia," Lloyd retorted.
"I cave!" cried Sylvia. "That was exceedingly
well answered, and I'm proud to note your familiarity
with Shakespeare."
The little Walloping Window Blind cut happily
through the waves, speeding along at a great rate,
and Sylvia revelled in her obedience to the helm, her
swift motion.
She took the Hapgoods up into a little bay that
made in from the sea and brought them home with-
out a mishap, having covered many knots in three
hours. The wind held, freshening as time went on,
and Sylvia was in her element.
3.n.iiffid by Google
"mat Is She?" 29
"Pretty decent little craft; why should I change
her?" Sylvia said as they came ashore.
They met Jack Jarvis strolling along the beach as
they came in. He was attired in faultless summer
array, and he stood stock still to stare aghast at
Sylvia.
"Miss Bell! Is it really Miss Bell?" he asked,
forgetting his manners as he surveyed the khaki,
faded and whitened, and now wet with spray; the
much-washed middy waist; the sea-stained hat.
Sylvia laughed and pulled olF the offending hat,
revealing her tight-drawn hair. "No, Mr. Jarvis;
that is my incognito. I'm Captain Sylvia, of The
Walloping Window Blind, at your service, and I
may be promoted to a whaler! Good-bye, Ruth and
Lloyd. See you at the dance — if they'll let me in I"
Sylvia ran off down the beach, whistling to O'Mal-
ley and laughing as she ran. "And Ruth looks as
nice as a little trim dewdrop!" Sylvia thought,
happily. "He'll see that second thoughts are not
always best. How lucky she is to have hair that
turns up at the ends, instead of getting horrid in salt
dampness!"
Jack Jarvis turned to Ruth with a puzzled frown.
"She struck me as a beauty the other day, and
awfully high-bred, and all that. Why do her people
allow her to go about like that?" he demanded.
"When you've known Sylvia Bell longer you'll
discover that it isn't so easy to say what she is,"
Ruth answered with a flash. " She's the most truly
3.n.iiffid by Google
30 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
high-bred of any girl I know; she's a princessi
And at the same time — she's everything else!"
Ruth waved her hands to encompass what she could
not say.
"You ar^ friends!" said young Jarvis. "Miss Bell
sings your praises equally. I hope I'll biow both of
you better. But all the same it's a shame for such a
pretty girl as Miss Bell to spoil herself. You must
like her tremendously?"
"Like her! Like Sylvia Bell!" Ruth laughed.
"I wonder why you put that as a question?"
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER III
" — ^That All Our Swains Commend Her?"
AT DINNER that night the telephone rang and
■^^ Sylvia sprang up to answer it. Her father
heard her laughing over the message, and smiled in
sympathy. "Evidently it was her own call," he
thought and looked up inquiringly as Sylvia came
back, still laughing.
"What was at the other end of the wire. Miss
Bell?" he asked.
"A much-mortified and somewhat scared Lloyd
was at the other end, Mr. Bell," repHed Sylvia.
"He had forgotten to ask to escort me to the dance
to-night! How's that for gallantry? Not altogether
flattering to your lovely daughter, is it, Mr. Bell?
However, Lloyd was overcome by his remissness.
And it isn't unflattering; we're such good friends he
could forget. The other boys try to be so exceed-
ingly well-mannered; Lloyd's restful,"
"But he was too late, of course? You had
promised to let someone else take you?" hinted
Mr. Bell.
"No, I hadn't," Sylvia said, blushing a little under
a suspicion of her father. "Doctor Ritchie asked
3.n.llffidbyG6'Og[C
32 "ff^ho Is Sylvia?"
me to go with him, but I said if I didn't join the
Hapgoods I'd get there alone, and I wouldn't prom-
ise because I thought it Hkely I should go with
them."
"I see. So Lloyd will take you and Ruth? Well,
after he gets you there he won't be over-burdened,"
said Mr. Bell, with apparent innocence.
"No. It seems that Jack Jarvis asked Ruth to go
with him ever so many days ago," Sylvia said, trying
not to smile.
"Sylvia, take care I You will offend the eligible
youths of your acquaintance if you play tricks like
this," her father warned her, enjoying Sylvia's dawn-
ing bellehood, as she quite well knew he did.
She shut her eyes tight now, a new and pretty way
she had fallen into when she wanted to hide their
laughter.
"It won't hurt Gerald Ritchie, M. D. — stands
for 'Most Doubtful' we girls say! — to be kindly and
considerately snubbed. Besides, I can sooth his
wounded feelings in a jiffy, if he has any ! I must get
ready now, Father-mine. I wish you were going!
You can't imagine how much nicer you are than any
youth — any other youth there, unless you go to make
the comparison."
Sylvia had come around behind her father's chair,
and he stretched up his hands, imprisoned hers and
drew them around his neck, her cheek against his.
"But I do know that if 'all our swains commend'
Sylvia, as Shakespeare said, none of them can com-
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" — That All Our Swains Commend Her?" 33
mend her as her father does," he said, the thrill in his
voice testifying to his sincerity.
"You blessed scientist!" said Sylvia, kissing the tip
of his ear, being at a disadvantage.
Upstairs in her own room she went about her
preparations for the dance with the same impersonal
interest that she had shown in getting ready to go
sailing. Just as blithely as she had donned old
clothing which hid her beauty, she assumed gar-
ments of exquisite materials and design which would
enhance it. It was evident that Sylvia was intent
solely upon having a good time, and that whatever
contributed to that end was welcome, its effect upon
her appearance being of no consequence.
O'Malley, that pampered Irishman, lay on Sylvia's
couch watching her from under the wiry brows of
his thatched head that lay down tight on his front
paws. He knew quite well that this sort of dressing
on his mistress's part betokened going where he
might not follow. Sylvia surveyed her white silk
stockings and slender white dancing pumps with
a satisfaction that could not have been predicted
from her sailing uniform.
"I tell you, O'Malley-dog, tan walking shoes are
to be respected, but white dancing shoes are to be
worshipped I I wonder why shoes are so much more
attractive than hats, or gowns, or gloves F All girls
love shoes, O'Malley, dear," she said. O'Malley
wagged his tail cordially, but did not raise his head.
He indulged his Sylvia's liking for dancing shoes, but
3.n.iiffid by Google
34 "IFho Is Sylvia?"
why should he Hke that in which she danced away
from him?
Sylvia's shining masses of dark hair were a problem
to arrange. Her only consolation was that it did
not require elaborate dressing.
She let her hair fall like a soft, dusky curtain over
her white kimono, brushed it till it was tractable and
silky, then braided it and coiled it across the back of
her shapely head, letting it ripple back from her
broad forehead, shading her temples in a way that
was all her own.
She surveyed the result in the mirror critically.
" I wouldn't mind one, exactly right rose behind
that ear, Mr. O'Malley, but I never thought of
flowers! I'd hate to buy them to wear, for myself
to fade," she said. Sylvia let her kimono slide to the
floor and threw carefully over her hair a floating mass
of white Georgette crepe, which, settling into place,
developed into a full skirt with hemstitched tucks and
a waist that crossed and took her into its embrace in
a surplice, outlining her throat in a long line of open-
ing. There were wing-like sleeves that spread and
flowed outward as she moved, showing the curves of
her Arm round young arms.
"Not so bad, is it, O'Malley?" Sylvia asked her
confidant, blamelessly pleased with what her mirror
told her. "She's made it beautifully. I'll send the
other girls to her; she needs work. Now I'll call up
my other Irish friend to finish me; Norah loves to see
my fine feathers."
3.n.iiffid by Google
" — That All Our Swains Commend Her?" 35
Sylvia went to the head of the stairs at the lear
of the hall and touched an electric button. A voice
from below called up:
"Did you ring, Miss Sylvia?"
"Yes, Norah. I'm all ready but finishing. Won't
you please come up and fasten hooks? Tell Cassie
to come to see my new gown," Sylvia called back.
In a moment a brown-eyed, brown-haired Irish girl,
with a sweet pale face that wore a look so anxious
that it needed a second glance to see that she could
be, at the most, not more than four years Sylvia's
elder, dropped a small, shy curtsey in the doorway.
"Oh, Miss Sylvia, it's a vision you are in that
white mist of a thing," cried Norah, wonder and
admiration in her eyes. "You look like a Month of
May procession, at home in Ireland, whin the young
maidens march to the shrines. But they'd be wearin'
veils and wreaths."
"Homesick, Norah?" asked Sylvia. "Hard to be
here alone?"
"Oh, Miss, it's that and more! Will I fasten your
gown, Miss Sylvia, and where will the places be
needin' it?" said poor little Norah, checking a sob.
"Down the side, under this drapery, and the
surplice where it crosses in the back, and then the
girdle over that," Sylvia directed her. "I'm going
to get you to tell me all about it, and I'm going
to straighten it, whatever it is that troubles you.
You're not to feel friendless in a strange land, Norah;
you'll seel"
3.n.iiffid by Google
36 "Who Is Sylvia?"
This time Norah could not repress the sob.
"God bless you, Miss, for bein' unspoiled and
gentle whin you've the whole world smilin' on ye,"
she heard the girl murmur. And after Norah had
finished the hooks which Sylvia had considerately
left for her to do, she saw her pale maid lift the edge
of her white drapery and kiss it, thinking the action
unseen.
"That's a dear way to start to have a good time,
blessed and trusted," thought Sylvia, taking up her
gloves and fan and leaving her coat for Norah to
carry.
Cassie waited for her downstairs.
"You look very nice, Miss Sylvie," she said, her
voice indifferent, but her eyes proud. "Most girls
wear their skirts a bit shorter, but that looks nice.
Hope you have a good time. Don't stay late. And
remember whatever anybody else may do, you're
Sylvia Bell, and 'nohlessy obligay.' I read that
expression somewhere ; it's French. It means if
you're noble, you're under obligations to live up to
it."
"Thank you, Cassie. I will try not to disgrace
you," said Sylvia, meekly.
She shpped into the hbrary where her father was
reading, and revolved before him on her toes, chal-
lenging him by her silence to say that she was not
satisfactory. Mr. Bell laid down his book and put
his arms around her, gingerly,for fear of crushing her,
yet most tenderly.
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" — Tkea All Our Swains Commend Her?" 37
"Dear heart, I hope the world will be kind to you,"
he whispered, kissing her. And Sylvia felt that a
second time that night she had received a bene-
diction.
"Lloyd's come for you," announced Cassie, calling
from the hall.
Sylvia ran out to meet her escort. She found
Lloyd impressive but self-conscious and embarrassed
in evening clothes. He carried a long box, un-
mistakable in character.
"Flowers, Tink?" he said, thrusting the box
toward her. " Didn't know whether you'd have 'em.
Aunt Helen told me she thought this sort would be
best."
"Why, Lloyd, I wanted some! I'll love theml"
cried Sylvia, taking from the box long-stemmed, half-
opened buds of creamy white, with golden hearts that
gave out a delicious odour.
She pinned the roses in her belt, but one more
perfect than all the others' perfection she fastened at
the side of her heavy coils of hair, so that it lay
against the darkness like a star.
"Is that right?" Sylvia asked with unintentional
coquetry, turning to the silent boy.
"All right," said Lloyd, but he looked at Sylvia
not at the rose.
"You never brought me flowers before, Lloyd;
indeed I thank you," said Sylvia.
"No, I never did," said Lloyd.
For an instant they looked at each other, wonder-
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38 "ffko Is Sylvia?"
ing at a sense of a great change. Then Sylvia caught
up her gloves and loose coat, which Lloyd did not
offer to help her to put on.
"I don't need it, going. Come, Lloyd," Sylvia
said, with a quick intaking of her breath.
The dance was given by Mrs. Gayton in honour of
her only daughter Maida's nineteenth birthday.
The Claytons were part of the summer colony
which was rapidly increasing in numbers along the
beautiful dunes that bordered the ocean at Paxton.
This was their second season in their stone house, a
house called a "bungalow" for no reason whatever,
unless because it could not be called a house in a
city block. It was long, wide, and most imposing,
its second story broken by many interpolations of
sleeping porches and turrets, its ground floor flanked
by porte-cocheres and pergolas. Its dancing space
surpassed any other in the neighbourhood, formed as
it was by the combination of several rooms divided
only by sliding doors.
Maida Clayton was a slender, dark-eyed girl,
extremely vivacious, beside whom Ruth and Sylvia
seemed to be — as indeed they were — mid-way out of
childhood. Maida had acquired an air of experience
that made her considerably more than her one actual
year older than Sylvia Bell and her friends. Mothers
felt vaguely that Maida's influence was not quite
wholesome for their young folk, yet they never could
verify the impression. The conservative old families
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" — That Ml Out Swains Commend Her?" 39
of Paxton-on-the-Sea decided to attribute it to the
Claytons' new riches. Maida was not in perfectly
good taste: it was probably no more than that.
The two seasons that the Claytons had so far spent
in Paxton had made considerable difference in the
place. They dearly loved to entertain and to enter-
tain lavishly; nowhere else could a dance be given
with such reckless extravagance as at "High Tide,"
the Claytons' "bungalow."
Sylvia and Lloyd heard the quivering sweetness of
the violins as soon as Lloyd stopped the engine of his
roadster under the porte-cochere.
"I'll take her around to the garage myself," Lloyd
told the competent person who was waiting to
render this service to those who drove their own cars
to the dance. Lloyd would never allow any one but
himself to look after "Gwendolen" as he had
christened his cherished car.
"I'll be right in, Sylvia," he added, coming around
to help Sylvia get out. "Say, I forgot to engage
'most all of your dances I I want all of them, but
please give me most of them, and don't let any one
else fill up your card, if I happen to get held up in the
garage, or anywhere."
Sylvia laughed. "Well, Lloyd Hapgood, of all
the shrinking modesty! So shrunken you can't
wear it at all I How do you know I wouldn't rather
dance with other boys? I'm not going to prom-
ise dances now; it isn't fair. Goodness! That
sounds as though my own modesty weren't too evi-
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40 "Who Is Sylvia?"
dent! I don't mean that I think it matters, but I
think it's fairer to begin at the beginning — of the
dance."
"Matters all right! Well, I'll hurry. Say, Tink,
sort of hang around upstairs, then, to let me start
without a handicap," said Lloyd, jumping into his
car and getting under way before the end of his short
plea.
Sylvia ran gaily up the three broad steps of the
entrance, enveloped in a shaft of opaline light from
the great electric lantern just within the door.
The violins, with a harp accompanying, were play-
ing a concert waltz, full of the longing pathos of that
class of composition.
"Not dancing yet," thought Sylvia as she went up
the stairs, glad not to miss one step of the pleasure
which she enjoyed with all her music- and motion-
loving nature.
It did not take her more than three minutes to
make sure that Gwendolen had not disarranged her
hair, nor her draperies, so, impatient as she was to
get downstairs, it was good of her to dawdle in the
dressing room in order to let Lloyd have the time for
which he had asked to catch up with her,
A shy little creature who said that she knew no
one, but whom, she said, Maida Clayton had met at
one of the hotels and had invited to her dance, was
loitering upstairs, dreading to go down, and Sylvia
promptly took her under her wing.
"I'll introduce all the boys to you, and start you
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" — That All Out Swains Commend Her?" 41
comfortably with the girls; it won't be hard to get
acquainted, you'll Bnd, if you dance welt. Do you ? "
Sylvia asked with her boyish air of friendly pro-
tection.
"I ought to have told you," murmured the girl.
"I said Miss Clayton met me at the Sea Girt. So
she did, but — I'm a professional."
"Oh," said Sylvia, at a loss what else to say.
Then she rallied. "You dance professionally? Then,
of course, you'll be in demand. That won't make it
harder, surely."
"You are very kind," said the girl. She looked
pale and timid, not in the least as Sylvia would have
expected a girl to look who followed this mysterious
calling. She found it quite exciting to meet a pro-
fessional dancer.
" Miss Clayton told me to come down and meet her
guests, and dance like the rest of you, I mean as if I
were a guest myself. But I have taught her a fancy
dance and, later in the evening, we are to dance it
together and I am to do some solo dancing."
"Great!" cried Sylvia, heartily. "What fun it
will be I Maida Clayton always does something
no one would have expected. We never had any-
thing of this sort here; not in a private house. I
never saw fancy dancing; not off the stage."
The little dancer looked up into Sylvia's clear blue
eyes, which looked out on the world from under their
dark lashes with fearless directness, crystal no
more shadowless than they, the true mirror of a
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42 "fFho Is Sylma?"
mind that disdained anything unworthy of stainless
maidenhood.
"I hope you will like the dances/' the girl said, and
Sylvia felt a chill of apprehension.
"Why not? I love dancing. Shall we go down?
Come down with me and we'll make our bow to Mrs.
Clayton and Maida," Sylvia suggested, shaking ofF
the discomfort.
"What a dear you are, Sylvia Bell, to look after
my little geniusl" Maida cried as she welcomed
Sylvia. "This is Miss Hermione Elmsley, Miss
Bell. She's a wonder, Sylvia. By and by we're
going to show you something, she and I, that will
make this little resort sit up and take notice! Intro-
duce her, that's a dear. I've got to see to heaps of
things. We're going to dance right away. If you'll
start Miss Elmsley, she'll do the rest. Dancing with
her is like getting wings when you'd no notion of it."
Sylvia turned away. Around her in an instant
gathered a group of would-be partners, all eager to
secure as many dances as she would give them. At
the same time the girls beamed on her, few of them
grudging her the inevitable triumph she received.
Sylvia did not try to win admiration; she tried only
to have a good time, and, having it, diffused it around
her. No girl ever suspected that Sylvia was trying
to get the best of her; she had no desire to pull out the
plums for herself, Jack Homer-wise, so the girls wisely
joined the boys in admiring her and following where
she led. "What Sylvia Bell says, goes," they all
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" — That All Our Swains Commend Her?" 43
agreed; her opinions carried an influence which she
neither sought nor realized, because her standards
were true, her sense of justice keen.
Somehow Lloyd was not the first to get hold of
Sylvia's dance card. Gerald Ritchie, the young
medical student, out-generalled him. He was five
years older than Lloyd, six years older than Sylvia,
a big, handsome, attractive person, never ill-natured,
always carrying his point. Lloyd reluctantly ad-
mired him, though he felt particularly youthful and
crude before htm. For reasons that he never ana-
lyzed it made him heavy-hearted when he saw that
Sylvia also admired Gerald Ritchie.
"Oh, Mr, Ritchie, wait!" Sylvia protested.
"You're one of the big boys, grown up and desirable,
I can't let you take more than four; it isn't fair!"
She laughed, but recaptured her card none the
less, and the younger boys gratefully accepted and
filled up with their names the spaces she had secured
to them, each obediently taking only those which she
allowed to him.
Gerald Ritchie had the first dance. The small
orchestra was perfect and he was the best dancer in
the place, Sylvia's dress was new and becoming, her
shoes entranced her eyes every time she looked down
at them; altogether, it was a blissful Sylvia that
glided over the faultless floor on the arm of Gerald
Ritchie. "Isn't it perfectly inexpressible to dance
to such musicF" Sylvia asked. "I love dancing!
Oh, I am having such a good timet"
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44 "ffho Is Sylvia?"
The young man looked at her as if he were enjoying
it, too.
"You dance like a dryad, Sylvia. The sea winds
are in your veins and the rhythm of tree branches,"
he said, inspired to poetry. " I never saw any human
being with such a capacity for enjoyment. Tell me,
is there anything in the world that you don't like to
do?"
"Dam stockings," said Sylvia, promptly. "I
don't mind sewing, but I want something new to
show for it when I'm through."
Gerald laughed. "All the same, I think it would
be pretty hard to find anything active for brain, or
hands, that wouldn't give you pleasure."
He left her at the end of the dance with a reluctance
that everyone noted, except Sylvia, who went on the
floor with Lloyd for the next dance with the same
eager joy that Gerald had hoped was partly due to
himself.
Never wearying, never flagging, Sylvia danced on
and on, her eyes black with excitement, her cheeks
glowing, every inch of her tall, slender frame palpi-
tating with pleasure.
"Oh, I am grateful to you, Maida, for this lovely,
lovely dance, the house, the floor.the fairy musicians!"
Sylvia cried, pausing beside her hostess. "And your
Miss Elmsley is having a good time; she hasn't missed
one number."
Jack Jarvis took Sylvia out to the buffet supper.
"It's a perfect shame you Hve here in the winter,"
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" — That All Our Swains Commend Her?" 45
he said. "You must let me show you to New York!
You're made for the world."
"Am I? I feel to-night as though it were made for
me, just for me," cried Sylvia, gaily. "It's such a
dear, beautiful, happy world 1 Don't you think it's
wonderful to have it 'so full of a number of things,'
and to 'be as happy as kings' — with not one least
little defect in it? To be grown up — almost — and
still " she hesitated.
"Innocently light-hearted, Hke a kid?" Jack said,
looking at the radiant girl with something like ven-
eration. " Indeed, it is, Miss Bell! I wonder — well,
I wonder if you'd like the world if I could show
it to you? It isn't all just like thisi"
Sylvia's shining eyes met his trustingly.
"Don't you suppose one can keep it so, if they love
nothing different?" she asked.
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER IV
"Holy, Fair — "
OYLVIA and Jack Jarvis returned to the dancing
^ to find a one-step half over and Reggie Clayton,
who was to dance it with her, looking everywhere for
Sylvia.
"I didn't want to miss a bit of it any more
than you did; I don't want to miss a bar of this
glorious music," Sylvia said, wondering why her
partner's manifest sulkiness did not hft, and not
seeing that she had attributed her regret to an un-
flattering cause.
There were but two more dances before a heavy
silk portiere which hung across the end of the danc-
ing room was drawn aside. It revealed a stage, its
background soft draperies hung in deep folds, after
the approved method of preparing a stage for fancy
dancing, while calcium lights, placed in a gallery of
the drawing room, threw lovely colours over the stage
in professional effects.
Maida's guests fell back and massed themselves in
unconsciously beautiful groups, like great flower beds,
to see what their hostess had provided for them.
Sylvia tried to get with Ruth, but failed. She
46
b.Goo'^lc
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"Holy, Fair — " 47
found hei^elf flanked by Gerald Ritchie and Lloyd,
Jack Jarvis behind her. She was slightly separated
from Sally Meade, a girl whom she liked, by a small
table that had been pushed back to get it out of the
way.
The little professional dancer, no longer pale, but
necessarily made-up for her work, ran bare-footed
out from between the deep folds of the background,
her Greek draperies fluttering, and made profound
obeisance to her audience, her sleek, filleted head
almost touching the floor. And then she danced!
How she did dance I She seemed more like a
winged creature than a human girl, skimming lightly
over the floor, hardly touching it, her lithe, straight
little Bgure bending in all directions as if it were
superior to the restrictions of muscles.
The first dance was lovely, interpreting Mendel-
ssohn's "Spring Song," beautifully played by two
violins, a flute, and a harp.
Sylvia was in ecstasies.
" Oh, how lovely, lovely !" she cried, clapping
breathlessly. "Can't you see the jonquils and hear
the birds?"
"That little girl is good for an engagement on
Broadway^ all right," said Jack Jarvis, with the air
of a man of the world.
The next dance was an Impromptu of Chopin's.
It was beautiful, yet, for some reason that she could
not define, Sylvia liked it less than the "Spring Song."
Several solo dances followed, all illustrating Chopin,
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48 "ff^ko Is Sylvia?"
Debussy, and Russian composers. They were won-
derful, but Sylvia grew quiet as she watched them.
Something that she did not like she vaguely felt, and
she began to feel sorry for so young a girl who earned
her living by dancing for more fortunate girls.
At last Hermione Elmsley repeated the deep
obeisance of her entrance and ran, light-footed as a
nymph, into the folds of the rear draperies, her own
full, diaphanous gauzes melting into them.
During a brief interlude the orchestra played a
throbbing Slavic air, that penetrated through the
murmur of enthusiastic comments on the dancing
which surrounded Sylvia and irritated her nerves.
At last two figures stole out on the stage from
among the draperies, a shaft of mauve light enfolding
them. Sylvia caught her breath in a frightened little
gasp that Gerald Ritchie and Lloyd heard and in-
wardly echoed.
One of the figures was Hermione in a gauze chiton
that hung from one shoulder, clinging to her till she
looked like a little blade of white, highly tempered
steel. With her was Maida Clayton, in a short
Grecian tunic, her hair covered with a wig crowned
with a laurel wreath, to represent a Greek youth,
presumably a victor in the Olympic games. And
they danced something that represented, so the au-
dience was told, a votive dance to Athene for victory,
and an invocation.
It was wonderful dancing, marvellous grace and
muscle control, but it was not Greek, nor represen-
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"Holy, Fair — " 49
tative of Athene's worship, nor was the accompany-
ing music in the least Greek.
Sylvia, inexperienced and exquisitely young, felt
numb with pain, a pain too new to her for her then to
recognize it as shock. She knew that Ruth must
hate this strange, new dancing, too, and she wished
that she were near her. The girls around her seemed
to be carried beyond criticism by their admiration
for the skill of the dancers. It was marvellous
skill, but — it hurt! Oh, why had Maida danced like
this? Why had she spoiled this perfect evening?
Why, Sylvia thought, did she feel miserable, alone,
as if her very self had been taken from her ?
In a whirlwind of applause Matda and Hermione
ran off the stage at last. They were getting an
encore; they would return.
Sylvia would not look at Gerald Ritchie, though
she felt his eyes gravely and kindly resting upon her.
She turned to Lloyd and forced herself to look at
him, a dumb look of tortured appeal of which she was
not conscious-
Lloyd responded to it instantly, like her old
brotherly chum.
"Want to get out of it, Tink? I'll take you," he
said.
"Oh, yes I Take me home, Lloyd!" Sylvia said,
springing to her feet, not realizing that she almost
sobbed as she spoke, and that her rising then made
her conspicuous.
"Go get on your coat, and I'll have the car
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so "JVko Is Sylvia?"
around by the time you're down," Lloyd said.
"I'd get Ruth, but she's in Jack Jarvis's care,
and it's up to her to tell him if she wants to go."
Lloyd tucked Sylvia into the roadster with the ut-
most care when she appeared. He did not attempt
to talk to her during the short drive home, for which
she was grateful.
When they stopped at the Bell house Sylvia
aroused from her thoughts. "I came away without
saying good-night to Mrs. Clayton; of course Maida
wasn't about. I hate to be rude, even " Sylvia
stopped.
" Even under provocation ? " suggested Lloyd.
"I've no doubt, Tink, you'll have all the chance to
explain you want. You've witnessed to the truth
that is in you, in one way, and I've no doubt you'll
be called upon to testify in another way."
"I don't want to act as if I were better than "
Again Sylvia checked herself.
"You're dead right, Sylvia Bell, and you know it,"
said Lloyd, warmly. "It isn't setting yourself up;
it's standing pat. People stand for a whole lot
they'd better cut out. They say: "What's the harm f*
There is plenty of harm if it hits a girl like you, who
isn't used to it, as hard as it hit you to-night. We
were having a fine time; we weren't looking for
trouble. What was the use of dragging in trash?"
"Lloyd, you are a comfort!" said Sylvia, consoled
by this boyish way of understating, of dodging the
strong terms of condemnation which Sylvia knew this
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"Holy, Fair — " 51
manner of Lloyd's covered. "That's exactly what I
feel. I was so happy to-night, so childishly happy;
it was all so joyous and perfect! And suddenly
they stole the joy away from us, and the childishness,
tool I feel defrauded of my birthright."
"Dear old Tink, that's precisely what that sort of
people do," said Lloyd, with profound feeling. " But
thank the good Lord, they can't steal your birthright
if you hang fast to it as you do! You have a right to
be let alone; you're dead right. That show was
beastly bad taste. Rather nice that whatever leaves
a bad taste always is in bad taste, in the other sense I
Now don't worry, Sylvia. It was all right to come
away. Mark my words, there won't be any more
of that in our crowd. What Sylvia Bell does sets the
pace, you know. Say, Tink, I wish you'd let me
tell you how glad a boy is to have girls like you to
bank on."
"Good old Lloydl" responded Sylvia, as another
boy might have done. "You are a trump, and I'm
no end grateful. You always did stand by when
needed I Good-night."
By a compact of the evening before Mr. Bell and
Sylvia came down early in the morning after the
dance. The series of experiments upon which
hung Mr. Bell's hope of estabhshing a theory,
upon which he had worked intermittently for
years, was far advanced toward completion in the
laboratory. He and his assistant were to give long
3.n.iiffid by Google
52 "Who Is Sylvia?'*
forenoons to it, rising early for that purpose, Sylvia
no less interested in the result to come than her
father was.
"Are you tired from your gaiety, dear? You look
a little pale. I heard you come in last night con-
siderably earlier than I had expected you. Did you
enjoy the dance?" asked Mr. Bell, as quick now to
note a change in his girl's face as he had been oblivi-
ous to her when she was younger.
" It's a great house to dance in. Father; so big when
the rooms are thrown together, and the floors are
like mirrors, and you never saw such an orchestra —
I suppose I mean heard one. I surely enjoyed danc-
ing there," Sylvia replied.
"But ?" suggested her father, missing some-
thing from her reply.
"Yes, I suppose so, sharp Father," Sylvia admitted,
"Matda had a professional dancer to entertain us,
and Maida danced with her — Greek, they called it."
"Well, my dear?" her father hinted, having waited
a moment.
"Not very well, thank you," said Sylvia. "It
disagreed with me. I suppose I looked miserable,
for Lloyd asked if I wanted to go home, and I did.
Came away and forgot to say good-night I We girls
have our Hospital sewing meet this afternoon. I'll
be unpopular, I suppose."
"Sylvia, dear child, it sounds serious!" Mr. Bell
looked anxious.
"It is. Father I We never had anything like it
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"Holy, Fair — " 53
here before. They'll say it wasn't sensible to mind
it, but, Father, it was! And I did mind it ! And 1*11
keep on minding. And we are a nice lot of happy
girls, and if I can help it we aren't going to spoil that I
So there I" Sylvia looked defiant.
"Your first encounter with another world than
ours! I'm sorry, dear child: I'd gladly ward it off,
but you've got to see and decide for yourself, Sylvia.
I'm not afraid you'll decide wrong. If the girls
discuss it with you, don't be severe, but don't strike
your colours. Never do that, Sylvia — and make
your colour white I" Mr. Bell laid an arm affection-
ately across his tall girl's shoulders as they went to
the laboratory.
"When her shoulders are so nearly level with
mine, I can't hedge her in like a baby," he was
thinking.
A long morning of engrossing work, in which
Sylvia could not help knowing that she was truly
helpful to her father, went far toward healing her
wounded sensitiveness. No young girl would want
to seem to set herself up as a critic of others, nor
would she enjoy feeling that her comrades were open
to just criticism. Sylvia dreaded the afternoon, but
she forgot it in the laboratory work that was march-
ing triumphantly toward its climax.
Ruth came early, before any one else could get
there. She ran to greet Sylvia with a vehement hug;
to reach her neck she stood on tiptoe.
"You are a perfect darling, Sylvia!" Ruth cried.
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54 "f^ho Is Sylvia?"
"Lloyd and I told Aunt Helen about it, and she says
you are right, beautifully right. She says you
needn't have come away as you did, but that she can,
understand your running away, and that it was all
right to do it, if you wanted to. And I saw Sally
Meade, and she says she wishes she decided things
the way you do; she says it takes her till it's too late
to find out what she thinks about anything. But we
stand by you, so if the girls — Maida — pitches into
you, don't worry."
"I'm not worrying," Sylvia smiled down on her
small champion. " But X don't want to try to look
Uke a guidepost, if I am tall enough to be one."
The girls gathered rapidly in the big room up-
stairs which Sylvia had taken for post-war Red
Cross work ever since they had organized a junior
unit before the Armistice was signed.
Maida Clayton did not come. The other girls
talked fast, but never alluded to the dance of the
previous night, an omission that told eloquently of
how much it was in their minds. Whispered con-
jectures as to whether or not Maida would come flew
about when Sylvia seemed to be too busy to hear
them.
At last, impressively late, Maida came.
Sylvia went to meet her. "Maida," she said,
blushing furiously, "I want to apologize for not
saying good-night to your mother last night. I
could not get at you to speak to you, but I'm sorry
I forgot to thank her. Will you tell her, please?"
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"Holy, Fair — " 55
Maida tossed her head, her small dark eyes snap-
ping with temper.
"Very nice of you to admit you could do wrong,"
she said. "We all supposed Sylvia Bell incapable of
even a mistake. But of course when one is running
away from contagion, one forgets trifles like man-
ners."
"Why did she come here if she was going to be
horrid ? " Ruth murmured, wrathfully.
"To be horrid," said Sally Meade. "I hope
Sylvia settles herl"
"Maida," said Sylvia, quietly, though her voice
shook and her eyes flashed, "I am sorry you meet
me like this. I cannot quarrel with you in my own
house, at a Hospital sewing meeting, if I wanted to —
and I don't want to. If you will take my message
to your mother I'll be much obliged. I apologized
only for forgetting her."
"If you weren't an inexperienced baby, in spite of
your eighteen years, you'd know that was a clever
dance, if I do say it, and that interpretative dancing
is the latest," said Maida, contemptuously. "That
was Greek, symbolic."
"Are all symbols alike, Maida ? Doesn't it
matter what a girl wears, how she wears it, how she
dances?" Sylvia asked. "I did not like your dance;
it was not even a pretty thing, and But
there's no use discussing it! If you don't feel what
I'd think any girl would feel about it, no one else can
make you understand. It seems dreadful to pay
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56 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
another girl, no older than yourself, to dance like
that."
"Good gracious! Listen to Miss Bell! Sylvia,
that girl was precious glad of my check," cried
Maida.
"I suppose so," said Sylvia, mournfully. "If only
she had it for not dancing that dance, I mean! Oh,
Maida, wouldn't you rather help that little thing out
of all that?"
"You do get notions, Sylvia," said another girl,
Una Garland, timidly, plainly trying to support
Maida with an eye to the future. "Remember that
novel you returned to me, and wouldn't read it ? I
never got over that. Why, that author is simply the
most popular writer! He's great!"
Sylvia swung around with an impetuous move-
ment.
" He's a beast ! " she cried. " He writes abominable
stuff, and the worst of it is that it does sell, and then
the worst is that he could write well if he would,
for he once did. He sells his talent, turns it into
poison-gas manufacturing!"
"Well, if you are so afraid of poison, why don't you
go into a convent and have done with it?" Maida
said, disgustedly.
"Girls!" cried Sylvia, letting herself go, "am I
goody-goody? Don't I love fun? And don't I have
it, plenty of it : sail, swim, race, play games, dance,
frolic like any boy? Tisn't fair to come to me as if
I were a cantankerous old sour drop! But when it
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"Holy, Fair—" 57
comes to what is wrong to do, or to like "
She waved her hands outward as if casting some-
thing from her.
"Sure you're a cut-up, Sylvia!" cried Sally Meade.
"You're the most daring, liveliest girl in this place,
and it's dandy to know you're straight and fine with
it! You're dead right, and everyone of us knows it,
no matter what she says."
"Oh, Sally!" protested Sylvia, embarrassed. "I
only meant no one can call me goody-goody. If
when we're older we have to come up against dreadful
things, because it is our business to help out of them,
somehow, why then we'd be wrong to be afraid to do
it. But that isn't the same thing. Oh, I don't want
to preach! It's dreadful! And it isn't in my line.
But if you ask me, this is the way I feel."
"Well, Sylvia," persisted Una Garland, "why
wouldn't you read that novel?"
"I have a white crepe-de-chine blouse," said Syl-
via, with apparent irrelevance; the girls stared as if
they thought she was delirious. "I threw ink all
over it, just to see how black stains would look on it."
"Oh, Sylvia! Oh, Sylvia, you darling!" cried
Ruth in a rapture, instantly perceiving Sylvia's
parable.
"Well, Sylvia Bell, you surely have bigger wheels
in your head than I thought!" cried Maida, openly
triumphing over Sylvia's folly.
"Do you mean " began Sally Meade, feeling
her way.
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58 *'frho Is Sylvia?"
"Yes, I mean!" laughed Sylvia. "I didn't throw
ink over a white crepe-de-chine blouse! That's a
parable, my sisters! If I had, you'd have thought
me silly, wouldn't you? Yet the blouse would be
worth, probably, about seven dollars, and you might
get the stains out with salts of lemon; at the worst, it
wouldn't be a great loss. I don't think we can afford
permanent spots on what never wears out."
" Put it to vote, a rising vote," cried little Ruth, de-
lighted, seeing that her idol had won her cause. "All
who agree with Sylvia Bell and pledge themselves
to stand by her in this, please rise."
All the girls except Maida Clayton arose, though
Una Garland, having risen, cast a frightened took at
frowning Maida and sat down again.
"Oh, goodness, girls, don't !" cried Sylvia, crimson
and uncomfortable.
"We came to make surgical bandages, and we've
done some amputating," whispered Ruth to her, and,
in spite of her discomfort, Sylvia had a warm sense
of pleasure in having had the courage to stand by her
guns.
She ran away to fetch a big box of candy with
which she had provided herself for this meeting.
"Pretty white girl, Sylvia Bell is!" said Sally
Meade. "I think she's a lot hke Jeanne d'Arc,
afraid of nothing except of disobeying her Voices."
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER V
" — And Wise Is She"
TV^'ISS SYLVIA," said Cassandra when Sylvia
•'■■*■ returned late one afternoon of the following
week from making calls in all the propriety of an
eighteen-year-old Miss Bell, "there was a telephone
call during your absence, long distance. Your
aunt's coming."
"Oh, Cassiet When?" cried Sylvia, sitting down
to take off her gloves, thus betraying how the mes-
sage dismayed her.
"The day after to-morrow, on the 3:25 train.
You no need to look so shocked, Miss Sylvia. Your
Aunt Emily doesn't bother you nowadays as she used
to. I think she thinks highly of you," observed
Cassandra.
" She's very nice to me," admitted Sylvia. " I got
better acquainted with her in the winter, visiting her.
I'm ashamed to look sorry she's coming, ashamed to
feel so, but I always remember that Aunt Emily's
here when she is here, and it's nicer not to be re-
strained, Casabianca dear."
" I do wish you could restrain yourself from calhng
me that!" said Cassandra.
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6o "JFho Is Sylvia?"
"Ctti, Cassie, I beg your pardon! I don't mean to
do it," Sylvia said, contritely. "It's a flattering
name, though. And fits. Think how you've stood
by me ever since I was bom! And no fires below
your deck would make you budge. I think that's a
fine tribute, to call you Casabianca! I'll try not to,
though. Oh, Cassie, I've just thought of something!
Do you suppose that getting 'cold feet' and quitting,
dates back to the boy that stood on the burning deck ?
Because he couldn't have had cold feet, and he didn't
quit?"
Cassandra showed no interest in Sylvia's specula-
tive researches.
"Miss Sylvia," she said, "what do you expect me
to do about Norah ? She gets more 'n more tryin'.
And with Miss Bell comin', I'll have hard work to
put up with it,"
Sylvia, the housekeeper, arose to the surface at
this summons upon her.
" I meant to talk to Norah days before this," she
said. " It has been crowded out. I'll get her up in my
room after dinner and see what I can do with her.
But you know, Cassie, there isn't the smallest ravel-
ling of a desirable maid to be found now when the
hotel and cottage season has begun! And as to
Aunt Emily, why, in such things as Norah's mistakes
I don't mind her one bit."
"Because I try to fill in the gaps Norah leaves,"
Cassandra said, severely, but Sylvia was on her way
upstairs and did not turn back.
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"—And Wise Is She" 6i
That evening Sylvia found in her wardrobe a
pretty gown to give Norah, and one in which she could
make a few alterations for herself, enough to interest
Norah in pinning into place the altered drapery.
" If pretty clothes won't win a girl to talk, I don't
know how to do it," she thought, and called Norah
up to her room.
Norah knelt and pinned assiduously the places
Sylvia indicated, but her eyes did not smile when her
lips politely smiled, and beyond the respectful : "No,
miss," "Yes, miss," required by Sylvia's efforts to
make her talk, pale young Norah was silent.
"Thank you, Norah I You have done that
beautifully. You'd make a perfect maid. I'd like
to have you to dress me, and mend me, and make for
me — since I must dress 1 Norah, to be honest, I
love old clothes best!" laughed Sylvia.
"Yes, miss. Tis wonderful, so it is, to see you so
beautiful, and not carin' tuppence about adornin',"
said Norah, this time smiling with eyes and lips both.
"Oh, I want to look nice when I have to, but
freedom is a great thing. Now, Norah, here's a
little dress that I think will be pretty for you to wear.
Go into my dressing room and slip it on: don't you
want to? And we'll look it over," suggested Sylvia.
To her consternation Norah's lips quivered, and
her eyes brimmed with tears. "You're by far too
good to me, Miss Sylvia," she said. "I needed no
present for pinning your skirt. Sure, it's a privilege,
so it is, to do for you."
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62 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"Nonsense, Norah! I didn't give you the dress
for what you did; I gave it because I wanted to!
I know I'll like it on you," said Sylvia. "Norah-
girl, won't you tell Miss Sylvia what is troubling
youF She'd Uke so very much to try to cure it."
"Oh, God bless you, miss, for that, but how can
you?" sobbed Norah. "Miss Sylvia, I don't suit
here, and it's myself that knows it but too well,
Cassandra doesn't want me, and I've been tryin' to
get me courage up to sayin' I'd be leavin'."
"Cassandra is hard to please, Norah. She is kind
and good, but she wants everything done precisely as
she has always done it. I think you make mistakes
because your mind is filled with some worry, and that
if it were cleared up you'd be a fine little helper for
Cassandra. Tell me all about it, Norah. I am a
young girl, too," coaxed Sylvia, her voice irresistibly
sweet.
Norah looked up and Norah looked down. "Oh, I
can't I" she said, feeling herself on the point of
yielding.
"Is it anything about your own people? Or a
lover? Or not being well, Norah?" Sylvia urged,
seeing victory almost hers.
" I'm never sick, miss, and a lover's a thing I've not
a bit of," said Norah. "It's my young sister at
home in Ireland."
"Have you a little sister over there? And is she
alone?" asked Sylvia.
"Oh, that's it, miss, that's it!" cried Norah in a
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"—And Wise Is She" 63
burst of confidence at last. "She is alone, bidin*
the time when I'll be able to be sendin' for her to
come out. She's but fifteen years, miss. And the
woman that's keepin' her doesn't want her, and little
Roseleen is that unhappy she do be writin' me to sind
for her till I have me heart wrung by her."
"What would you do with her here, Norah?
Maybe she is safer in Ireland till she is older," sug-
gested Sylvia.
"No, miss, for there's a fine woman would take
her in and look after her till she'd be old enough an*
learned enough to go to service. It's no kin of ours,
but a fine, good, pious woman, came from the same
place we did, and that's near as good as kin, off* so far.
Roseleen would be all right here, entirely, and I was
savin' up to bring her out "
"Now don't say you lost the money, Norah!"
cried Sylvia, as Norah hesitated.
" I lent it, miss, for one week only, to a pleasant,
smart young man, who talked that nice, missi But
soira a satisfaction can I get out of him since, an' it's
three months — no, four months an' better! — since
he got it! He had it at Candlemas. He laughs at
me, tells me when I ask him for it not to love money
like the Yankees, or I'll be spoiled," Norah ended
ruefully. "He's not Irish, miss," she added, hastily
defending her own race from suspicion. "He's one
of those that might be anything, barrin' a Chinese."
"What have you for security?" asked Sylvia, feel-
ing herself businesslike in asking.
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64 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"Is it a paper you mean, miss?" asked Norah.
"Not a sign of onel"
"Oh, Norah! What is this young man's name?
Does he live here?" cried Sylvia,
"Yes, miss, he does. He's called Enos Coffin,"
Norah replied, hopeful of Sylvia's knowing him.
"Surely not Irish any more than Chinese! I don't
know him," said Sylvia, shaking her head hard.
"But I will know him! I'll see what can be done
about getting back your money. In the meantime,
Norah, listen to me: I'll lend you the money to send
over to your Roseleen to pay her passage, and if I
can make this too-winning Enos Coffin behave him-
self, you can return it at once. If not, some day!
I'm not afraid to trust such a good little girl as you
are."
"Oh, Miss Sylvia, Miss Sylvia!" Norah gasped,
going down on her knees in a sobbing heap of grati-
tude, her face in her hands on the seat of Sylvia's
willow chair. "Oh, Miss Sylvia, it's not the payin'
back with money! But how could I ever pay you
back for seein' and carin' that the heart was ate out
of me with worryin', an' comin' quick to help me,
like little Roseleen's guardian angel in a lovely
human shape? For there's no other young girl in
County Cork as pretty as little Roseleen, and I
promised our mother I'd look after her till she'd not
be needin' it. Miss Sylvia, I'll never repay you, but
it's better havin' God owin' you for your kindness
than the likes of me! I'll do me best to show you
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"~Jnd Wise Is She" 65
what it means to me. An', oh, Miss Sylvia dear, with
the load off me heart, sure Cassandra will never find
me mind cloudin' me eyes an' me ears whin she tells
me instructions. No more burnt sausages, Miss
Sylvia, thanks be to you, an' the angels that's guidin'
youl"
Norah was too true an Irish girl not to laugh with
Sylvia at this mingling of earth and heaven, and at
the memory of Cassandra's wrath, sorry as Norah
was for her wool-gathering.
Norah gathered up her new dress, which neither
she nor Sylvia thought again of trying on her.
Sylvia heard her singing down the back stairs an
air so truly Irish and minor that she rightly construed
it to be a hymn of rejoicing springing out of her
leaping Irish heart.
"Well, that was an hour well spent I" thought
Sylvia, no less happy than her maid. "Oh, isn't it
heavenly to be youngi I may have nearly sixty
years to Uve, and I can make people happy lots of
times, in every one of themt How beautiful Ufe is!"
Sylvia ran downstairs to join her father on the
piazza. She welcomed a chance to steal an evening
away from the good times going on among the
young people in order to spend it swinging luxuriously
in the hammock with O'Malley's head on her knees
and her father close beside her, the rip of his cigar
glowing in the dusk as they chatted. Much as
Sylvia enjoyed all the delights of her age, she better
loved her inrimacy with her father.
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66 "Who Is Sylvia?"
But Sylvia Bell's high spirits, daring fun, and
pretty face were too much in demand for many of
these evenings to be allowed to pass without inter-
ruption. So it was without surprise, though with
a sigh, that Sylvia saw Gerald Ritchie coming in at
the gate before she had been comfortably ensconced
in the hammock a half hour.
"Ah, Sylvia! Glad I found you at home! Good
evening, Mr. Bell," he said. " Pretty much all the
rest of our generation is seeing the new films for the
Hospital benefit to-night; how does it happen you're
not, Sylvia?"
"I like an evening at home sometimes, and I didn*t
want to see the films. Don't you think we're all
doing our little best for the new Hospital, and
wouldn't you prescribe a domestic evening occasion-
ally?" asked Sylvia.
"I would say it was wise," said the doctor-to-be.
"We all know that you are helping your best; we
don't call it a 'little best,* though! Sylvia, I'm going
over to North Paxton in the morning, to see a woman
whom my mother talks of employing. It's a lovely
drive along shore, you know. Will you go with me ? "
"I'd like to go a great deal, Mr. Ritchie, but I
can't. You see the morning is lab. time, and every
day is important there now. Sorry!" said Sylvia,
and looked so.
"Forgot all about the laboratory!" cried Gerald
Ritchie, contritely. "I'll make it afternoon. Can
you go then?"
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"—And Wise Is She" 67
"Yes, thank you, glad to, but perhaps your mother
is in a hurry about her errand?" suggested Sylvia.
"Oh, well, half a day can't matter. Shall it be
about half-past two, Sylvia? My car isn't up to
Lloyd's, but we'll get there. And you can wait out-
side while I talk to the Coffin lady," said Gerald.
"Coffin I" echoed Sylvia, swinging herself back
with the force with which she brought her feet to the
floor.
"Why this emotion?" asked Gerald Ritchie. "Do
you know the Coifins?"
"No, and that's why this emotion," retorted
Sylvia. "I want to. Isn't it curious how if you
hear of a thing for the first time, and it interests
you, you always hear of it soon again f I never knew
there were Coffins in Paxton, not till to-night, and
now you invite me to drive to see them ! And I want
badly to see them, one of them. Is the woman young
and is her husband a young man named Enos?"
"No, the woman is middle-aged, and is getting the
middle over on the wrong side, at that. Her son is
Enos; will that do?" asked Gerald.
" Perfectly well," Sylvia agreed. " Indeed I'm
doubly glad to go with you; I didn't know how to
find him."
"Explanations are in order, Sylvia. Your father
is consumed with curiosity," hinted Mr. Bell.
"Smoulder just a little while. Father mine! I'd
like to try my luck before I tell any one about it,"
begged Sylvia.
.:i.v Google
68 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"The Sphinx was a lady, Ritchie; they all love
riddles," sighed Mr. Bell.
"The Sphinx was not a perfect lady, Father;
you must admit that her hands weren't like these."
Sylvia held up her shapely tanned hands to prove it.
"Now I am a perfect lady, and I will solve my own
riddle later! The Sphinx wouldn't so much as allow
hers guessed. Mine is a nicer riddle, leads to more,
too. Though it has something to do with someone
going on all fours; not walking erect, apparently."
"If you won't enlighten me, cruel girl, at least
don't deepen my mental darkness," Mr. Bell im-
plored, trying to speak piteously.
"I Hke Gerald Ritchie, Sylvia. He has character
of the right sort, a nice mind, and quiet, good breed-
ing. I should imagine he would make a valuable
physician," Mr. Bell said, standing with his hand on
Sylvia's shoulder watching away the guest to whom
they had just said good-night.
"I like him, too, Fatherums. I catch myself
treating him respectfully, which is queer, for he
isn't so fearfully much older than I am and he's a
Paxton product! He's that kind, though. Yes, I
like him. But I like an evening alone with you!
However, that will be a lovely drive, and I do want
to find that Coffin — drive a nail in himl" Sylvia
ended with a laugh.
Gerald Ritchie was punctual to the hour appointed
for the drive. His car was a small touring car, and
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"—And Wise Is She" 69
Sylvia, fresh and pretty in a blue pongee with white
collar and cufFs and a knowing little close hat, chose
to sit in the front with her host. "I don't think it
chums one up half as much, and, anyway, I do hate
to be the sole survivor in a tonneau," she declared
swinging herself up without taking Gerald's proffered
help.
"Coquetry, or consideration would make you let
me help you, Sylvia Bell," remarked Gerald, follow-
ing her and pushing over his gears.
"I've no desire to be a coquette, Mr. Ritchie,"
said Sylvia, ignoring the implication that she was
inconsiderate.
"Why Mr. Ritchie, Sylvia?" asked Gerald. "Am
I so patriarchal?"
"I know; the rest call you 'Doctor,' but I thought
it wasn't the thing to do until you were a doctor,"
said Sylvia. And possibly she was not quite free
from coquetry in this reply that dodged his meaning
which she well knew.
" Won't you say 'Gerald' ? You used to when I was
a big boy and you were a small girl. Remember the
day you stayed too long on the rocks and the tide
came up, and caught you unawares, like the mother
of the little girl who had a little curl? And I came
along and got you off triumphantly and carried you
to the beach pick-a-back? You must have been
ten, or a little less, for I was sixteen then." Gerald
looked as though he enjoyed the reminiscence.
"Surely I remember!" cried Sylvia. "I was
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70 "If ho Is Sylvia?"
scared to bits. But afterward I so much enjoyed
having been scared that I went out on the rocks and
sat there till high tide, all alone, just to see if I should
drown. I didn't! But I am willing to admit that
I was the wettest kiddie outside *The Water Babies.'
I used to do the craziest things, playing alone as I
did. I wonder I lived to grow up, though dear old
Cass was almost as good as an accident policy! She
took such care of me! But she couldn't cover all my
wanderings."
The young medical student laughed, and let out
his car.
"You like speeding up to the limit. How about it,
Sylvia? Shall I be the same big boy I used to be;
'Gerald,' not 'Mr. Ritchie'?" he persisted.
"Of course, if you like," said Sylvia, carelessly.
"It's because you've been away so much, college
and medical college, that you come back a formal
stranger. It's not sensible. I'm having a fine drive,
Gerald. I Hke this car. Is it much farther?"
"Not much; a mile. If that means you'd Hke a
longer drive we'll take one after we've made our call,"
suggested Gerald, looking pleased.
They swung into a street of small houses, before
one of which they stopped. "Will you come in, or
shall I send your victim out to you?" asked Gerald,
holding the door pending Sylvia's answer.
"Send him out, please. I have to talk to htm
alone; it's a most serious matter." Sylvia laughed,
but she looked anxious.
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"—And Wise Is She" 71
In a moment a heavy young man, light-haired,
light-€yed, with a shambling gait, came out of the
house and lunged toward her. There was something
vaguely familiar about him, a shadowy half recollec-
tion, as of someone seen in a dream.
"Are you Enos Coffin?" Sylvia asked.
"Yes, Miss Bell. Pleased to see you again and
lookin' so well. Got that dog yet? What was it,
now, you called him? Some name, 'twas, but I
can't Oh, yes! Mahoney, or Moriarty, wa'n't
it?" the surprising Enos asked.
"O'Maliey? Where did you ever see O'Malley, or
hear his name ? Oh, now I know! You took us, my
dog and me, home in your cart once, ever so long ago,
when O'Malley had cut himself chasing a cat over a
cold frame!" Sylvia suddenly recalled the youth and
a brief acquaintance with him. " I told you to come
back to let me give you grapes, when they were ripe,
but you did not come."
"No, Miss Bell," said the young man, "far be it
from me to have did so. I laughed over that dog's
name, and the way you held his head up in your
lap, a-settin' flat on my cart bottom, with his leg
tied up with fancy embroideraries, which I thought
then and ever after you'd tored ofTn your own self,
till I'm safe to say I'd of had to pay not less'n thirty-
five cents to have laughed so hard at movies. I was
more'n satisfied with what I made out of it, if you
was."
"I was perfectly satisfled," replied Sylvia, gravely,
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72 "JFko Is Sylvia?"
not pointing out that her satisfaction did not flow
from the same source. "You were kind, and helped
me out once, so I hope that you will make it easy for
me to say what is hard for me to say to you now. Do
you know a nice Irish girl, Norah Leary?"
Enos's face changed. "I may say that I do," he
admitted.
"She is in my employ," said Sylvia, gently. "I
came to ask you when you expected to repay the
money which you borrowed of her? You know,
Mr. Coffin, she earns her money with her own hands,
and she needs it. When can she have it?"
"Well, it's like this," began Enos, visibly em-
barrassed. "That money isn't anywheres now, as
money. It's where I can't get it."
"It would be possible to get the same amount in
other money, wouldn't it? Norah does not care
about having back the same bills. You say it does
not exist now as money ? " Sylvia tried not to laugh
at this view of finances.
Enos shook his head till it hardly seemed safe.
" It's now a ring," he said,
"Oh," cried Sylvia, and could not check a rippling
laugh that ran away from her. " Do you mean that
you borrowed from a poor girl to buy a ring?" she
asked, sobering down to her task.
"You couldn't, not noways, Miss Bell, you
couldn't, buy a cheap ring for the lady you was
lookin' forward to givin' so much more as your whole
self, now could you? And my Alhmetta's that
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"—And Wise Is She" 73
partic'Iar you'd never think how she'd critter-size
a ring that fell short. So, as I'd fell short myself
about along then, I borrowed from that lady what
works for you, you say, and I don't see my way to
settlin' for it soon. I'm buyin' on installments a
phonograph talkin' machine, and records, lottin' on
havin' a happy home, if my lady friend stands pat,
so to speak."
Sylvia choked; it was an instant before she dared
to attempt to take up her argument. Then she
said:
"Do you think your AlHmetta — didn't you say
Allimetta? — would care to have you borrow from a
girl to buy her a ring? I think not, if she is honour-
able."
Enos's inexpressive face took on a distinct look of
alarm.
"Great cats, Miss Bell, you won't let it leak out,
will you? Not the way you think, she'd mind, but,
oh, my salted codfish, ain't she the jealous one ! She's
that jealous of me you couldn't believe! And I
don't never look at any other girl, to admire her,
not since I first asked Allimetta to leave me call
around."
Sylvia was suffering. Her throat ached from
suppressed laughter. The image of an Allimetta
jealously watchful of this flabby Enos was hard to
regard unmoved. But she saw her opening, and took
it.
"I will not go to see your Allimetta, provided that
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74 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
you repay to Norah the money you borrowed. If
you do not, I must see that she understands that in
reality it was Norah Leary, not you, who bought
the ring she wears," Sylvia said, sternly.
"I haven't got it now, that's honest, Miss Bell.
But rU try to raise it. Say, it's a lulu ring! Awful
lot of small, small diamonds put right in a mask, so to
speak. So's to make a dinner ring — but AUimetta
wears it most after supper. It shines great! It's
what the man called a marked-keys ring; search me
why I Say, Miss Bell, keep it a secret between us,
and I'll do my best for Miss Leary. I'll get extra
work; I can,"
"Very well. Let her hear from you a week from
to-day as to what you are going to do for her," said
Sylvia, like a second Portia, but feeling that Enos
was more unfortunate than wicked, and that his
Allimetta was not worthy of his simple, albeit mis-
applied, devotion to her.
"Hurry away, Gerald," Sylvia said under her
breath, as Gerald jumped into his car. "I've but a
few moments to live unless you can get me to where
I can laugh I"
As they drove off, Enos, at the gate watching
them with a woebegone face, seemed to rebuke
Sylvia's sense of humour.
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CHAPTER VI
"The Heaven Such Grace Did Lend Her"
/^UT of sight of the melancholy Enos draped
^-' over his low gate, when the car had turned the
comer, Sylvia fell back with her face against the
leathern cushion, and laughed and laughed.
Gerald laughed with her from the contagion of her
merriment.
" I enjoy the joke, Sylvia, still I should like to know
what it is,' he remarked.
"Allimetta is dreadfully jealous of Enos Coffin,"
sighed Sylvia, wiping her eyes and straightening her
demoralized hat. "Enos has borrowed money of our
pretty Irish Norah in order to buy his Allimetta a
marked-keys ring — he said so, Gerald, truly I A
marked-keys ring! Exceedingly glittering and re-
splendent! And Norah might continue to supply
Allimetta's glory if Allimetta were not jealous.
But I hope and beheve that fear of my telling
Allimetta its source will arouse Enos to an effort to
pay for his ladye faire's ring! Isn't that a pretty
plot for a comedy?"
Gerald Ritchie stared at Sylvia, then he laughed,
throwing back his head and giving himself up to it.
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Sylvia said that what she liked best about Gerald
Ritchie was the thorough way he laughed.
"It's a peach, Sylvia! But so are youl" Gerald
said, admiringly. "What a girl you are for sailing
right in!"
"Comes from being Captain Sylvia, and having a
boat of my own from my earliest daysF" su^ested
Sylvia. "But that doesn't sound nice, Gerald; I
don't, I surely do not like meddlesome spinsters!"
"Spinsters of eighteen aren't so worse," observed
Gerald. "You know perfectly well it isn't meddling,
but a knightly instinct to rescue the friendless! I'm
shocked to Bnd you insincerely fishing. Miss Bell!
Can a girl be a knight errant?"
"You seem to have packed a good deal into that
one sentence. Doctor Ritchie-to-be!" retorted Sylvia.
"And I think a girl can be a knight errant, at least in
spirit."
"Brave, loyal, tender, and pure. That's about the
knightly ideal, isn't it? Sure she can be, and some-
times she is," agreed Gerald, unexpectedly. Then,
as if he felt that his eyes were applying his words too
strongly to the " brave, loyal, and pure" girl at his side,
he added hastily:
"Got to do the mater's errand. It's to drive up to
North Beach for a fresh lobster for supper. Do you
mind?"
"Mind! Not a bit. I'd gladly drive to Maine in
this breeze, if I hadn't obligations of my own," cried
Sylvia, "Aunt Emily Bell is coming co-night to
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"The Heaven Suck Grace Did Lend Her" 77
visit us, and I must be home in time to make myself
fit properly to receive her."
"Seems to me I remember your aunt when I was
that big boy and you were that small girl we spoke
of, and that all of us stood in dread — ^well, we'll say
awe — of her!" hinted Gerald.
"Indeed we did I She's grown ever so much nicer;
at least she thinks I have, which comes to the same
thing for me, yet I can't get over the old habit of
feeling squelched when she's coming." Sylvia sighed
involuntarily.
"When two people are as happy as you and your
father are, or the mater and I, it's not much fun
having any one come in to make a new note in the
harmony. And I suppose it's worse yet when you
don't live harmoniously and someone comes to catch
you at it," added Gerald with his jolly laugh.
They found that the lobster fishermen had not
been long ashore with their haul. The lobsters des-
tined for the hotels near by were boiling; it was
necessary to wait till they were done to get one for
Mrs. Ritchie.
Sylvia and Gerald strolled along the beach, whiling
away this time of waiting, and Sylvia recurred to
what Gerald had said as they were driving over.
"Father and I are perfectly happy together,
Gerald," she said. "Sometimes I wonder if it is
selfish, wrong, to be so much so."
"You, Sylvia, asking yourself morbid questions!"
cried Gerald. "They're not in your line, and it's
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78 "fTko Is Sylvia?"
surely morbid to doubt its being right to be happy —
in your particularly right way at that! Sure it's
right, beautifully right, and you know it."
Sylvia smiled at Gerald's emphasis.
"Oh, well, I don't mean that I don't know how
lovely it is for a father and a daughter to be such
chums as Mr. and Miss Bell are, but it does make me
selBsh. It wouldn't trouble me greatly if I had no
other friend on earth than my splendid fatherl And
I don't care about any visitor staying more than a
week — to be honest! That must be selfish; people
ought to want to share their good things."
"Aunt Emily?" hinted Gerald, suggestively. "Is
she the cause of your conscience awakening?"
Sylvia laughed. "I s'pecti" she admitted.
"What's wrong with her?" asked Gerald.
"Nothing in all this world. She's the most perfect
perfect-iady I ever sawl She truly is a nice woman,
and a good one; she does everything precisely as it
should be done; helps the poor; does a lot of charity
work; contributes to no end of worthy causes; ab-
hors dishonour as much as she does untidiness; al-
ways would speak the truth though the sky fell;
never has a smudge on her gloves, nor one point of
her collar the least speck higher than the other! She
used to die over me, my shabby tramp clothes, and
my unladylike pursuits — sailing my boat and running
wild, as she called it! I used to dread her visits, be-
cause I did hate like everything to be the text and
the congregation, both, to one long, every-day ser-
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"The Heaven Suck Grace Did Lend Her" 79
mon! Aunt Emily was sure I'd never ieam to sew,
or to cook, or to do a single thing I ought to do I But
now that I'm housekeeper, and make my simpler
gowns, she is quite approving me. It must be a toad
ofFher mind ! She's almost respectful to me, and really
affectionate, in her way. Poor Aunt Emily! So it's
mere selfishness that makes me dread her visit; she's
fine to mel But she never will Uke O'Malleyl"
Sylvia ended her long statement of the case with a
sigh more sincere than her carefully favourable con-
struction of her aunt.
Gerald threw back his head with the same ringing
laugh.
"Now we tap the milk in the cocoanut!" he cried.
"There the truth leaked out! You and your Aunt
Emily are not what the Italians call simpatica."
"1 like dogs," admitted Sylvia. "I suppose that
stands for something! Dogs are not formal, and they
certainly are democratic. Aunt Emily is most for-
mal, and if she didn't feel afraid to lose her soul by
denying the Declaration of Independence she'd never
admit anybody was equal to a Bell. She does admit
it, because she knows the whole duty of an American,
but she doesn't believe it!"
Again Gerald laughed. "You won't grow into
one of the clever ladies who say smart things, will
you, Miss Bell?" he suggested.
Before Sylvia could prophesy her own develop-
ment, Gerald continued: "My mother and I are
cronies, speaking of happy families. She likes you a
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8o "IVko Is Sylvia r"
lot, Sylvia. She said the other day that she wanted
you to come to dine with us."
"That's kind of her," said Sylvia, absent-mindedly.
"Do you think the lobster is ready?"
"We can go back and see," said Gerald, hurt by
her indifference to his mother's intentions, which in-
volved, and were meant to supplement, his own.
"Mother is not well, Sylvia. She hesitates about
asking you to visit her, thinks you'd find her dull."
"Why, I like your mother! She's as nice as she
can be, and is always interesting. Of course she
couldn't be dull if she tried," cried Sylvia, heartily,
arousing to an appeal to her pity, as she always did.
" I'll tell Mother you said that; thank you, Sylvia,"
said Gerald, gratefully. "And you'll come? I want
you to come; you know that, don't youf"
"Of course. 'Ever the best of friends, aren't usE'
Like Pip and Joe Gargery," laughed Sylvia, looking
up at him with the frank friendliness that is the
surest discouragement of sentiment.
Perhaps Sylvia was aware of this and put up the
barrier intentionally; the least conceited of girls
usually is aware of the approach of sentiment.
Then she reverted to her own affairs, partly because
of the look in Gerald's eyes, partly because they
really were supremely interesting to her.
"I can't speak of laboratory doings, Gerald, to
any one. There'd be no use in speaking of them
where it could do no harm, because no one would
know what I was talking about. And if they did
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"The Heaven Such Grace Did Lend Her" 8i
understand there'd be a risk of secrets leaking out.
But there's no harm in telling you that Father thinks
he's proved a theory which he's held for a long time,
a valuable discovery, a triumph!"
Gerald looked admiringly into the girl's eyes,
shining with joyful pride. "I'm safe, Captain
Sylvia," he said. "I might be able to understand,
but I surely would not betray the secret. Is it near
publication?"
"Yes, near," said Sylvia, nodding hard. "The
specimens are developing beautifully in the tanks,
and most of the slides are done. Gerald, you can't
imagine what it feels like to help in a thing like that I "
"Can't I? I think I can. You're a lucky girl,
Sylvia. You've always been interested in something
worth while. Even when you were a kiddy it was
sailing, rowing, gardening, reading; you never have
had vacancies like other growing girls. It's great for
you, but your friends feel that it rather excludes
them. It sets you free in spirit; nothing gets hold of
you to tie you down, but the very thing that turns
you into a kind of young Diana shuts out people like
a high wall. Every corner of your mind is rented,
furnished!" Gerald laughed as he spoke, but there
was no mistaking the sincerity of his complaint.
"Nonsense-nonsensical!" cried Sylvia, impatiently.
"I like people fully as well as they like me. Any-
way, I never advertised vacant apartments for
lodgers I There's your lobster, Gerald! I can't
distinguish his features, but they're taking a lot out
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82 "Who Is Sylvia?"
of the pot, and he's among them. I believe I'll
take one home to Cassie, if there are two out of a
situation. Aunt Emily would like lobster salad for
lunch to-morrow I'm sure — because I would."
"Momin', Captain Sylvia," said one of the lobster
fishermen as Sylvia came up. He was a droll person,
with heavy bent shoulders and a funny tight sort of
face, covered with a wrinkled skin, pickled in brine,
out of which his light blue eyes twinkled Uke bubbles
on the surface of the pickle.
"Morning, Mr. Benjy Lobster," returned Sylvia,
using the name which in her babyhood she had
bestowed upon him. "We, Mr. Ritchie and I, want
luscious lobsters. Have you any to spare?"
"Well, Sylvia, any we have, but a lot we have noti
The Surf House is goin' to have big doin's to-night
and it engaged most of our haul. I couldn't let you
have more'n, say, a dozen an' a half lobsters to save
me, not if I was to regard my given word," said "Mr.
Benjy Lobster" without a smile, but twinkling at
Sylvia.
She twinkled back at him, also unsmiling. "We'll
struggle along with two apiece, if they are a re-
spectable size," she said.
"I clearly an' distinctly remember you came one
momin' after a lot of unwholesome sweet stuff to
take out in your boat; this was to Peter Barnes's
store you come, an' me an' the rest of us was settin*
there; about the time you captured them counter-
feiters, more'r less single-handed, this was. An' I
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"Thi Heaven Suck Grace Did Lend Her" 83
told you I'd got a lobster so little he'd of made a
watch charm for you, an' I'd chucked him back in the
water an' told him to grow big enough to make you a
salad. Well, he carried out my instructions, an' this
momin' he qome back into my pot. 'How'll I do
now for Captain Sylvie's salad?' he inquired, alt
green an' side-steppin'. 'Fine!' says I. 'Come in
out of the wet.' He's a-grown up into a credit to his
country, Sylvie, an', with another medjum-sized
one, will make you a salad worth it."
"Can you give me a pair, also; even if they aren't
lobsters you've known from their youth?" suggested
Gerald, enjoying the fisherman as much as Sylvia did,
to whom "Mr. Benjy Lobster's" dialogues with his
haul had been an unspeakable delight from her
earliest days.
" I've got a pair named Romeo an' Julyet. Romeo
he told me not for anything to let him get parted
from Julyet, salad, or ally Noohurg. I guess you'd
like that sort of a lobster," said Mr. Benjy, solemnly,
but chuckling inwardly as he watched the colour rush
to Gerald's hair.
At last the adolescent lobster and his lesser compan-
ion and Gerald's "Romeo and Juliet" were wrapped
in a coarse, greenish-brown paper and stowed away
in the car, and Gerald sped away at a higher speed
than he would have chosen, because Sylvia was
nervously afraid of being late to prepare for her
Aunt Emily's arrival.
"Had a fine drive and accomplished a tot. Thanks,
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84 "fFho Is Sylvia?'*
Gerald, ever so much!" Sylvia said, giving her hand
to Gerald at the car door.
"I wish I could always have you with me when I
drive, Sylvia I" Gerald burst forth, not as if he meant
to say it and immediately looking red and frightened.
Wise young Sylvia laughed carelessly, though she
blushed as she said: "Life isn't all beer and skittles,
they say I Nor all sailing and motoring, either.
I'm a busy old lady, Gerald, what with my house-
keeping, my sewing, and my laboratory! Why, it
seems to me I hardly read a thing lately! But this
drive was hne. Good-bye; thanks over again!"
Sylvia ran up the walk and into the house and
almost into her Aunt Emily, coming out of the
Ubrary door to meet her.
"Oh, Aunt Emily!" Sylvia cried, stopping short,
aghast at this apparition. "I am so sorry not to
have been here to receive you I I surely thought that
I'd get back sooner, but I also thought that you'd not
get here till the last train."
"I made a prodigious effort to take the early
one, Sylvia," replied Miss Bell, kissing her niece
with an alteration in her manner that Sylvia in-
stantly felt. "I was impatient to get here. How
well you are looking, and how pretty, child!"
If the ceiling had fallen Sylvia could not have
been more amazed. Aunt Emily did not say
gracious things, and she wholly disapproved of com-
pliments.
"Why, Auntie I" she exclaimed. "I'm glad if
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"The Heaven Suck Grace Did Lend Her" 85
you think that, but I'm afraid I look most untidy.
I cannot keep my hair in order like other people
when I drive or sail. And there's a strong breeze
along the beach. We went after lobsters; Cieratd
Ritchie took me."
"So Cassandra told me. He's an excellent young
man, I fancy. Will you come into the library at
once, Sylvia? I want to talk to you. I — I
need you, Sylvia; your advice, your help, your
sustaining youthful strength." Miss Bell's voice
shook and she turned without another word, pre-
ceding Sylvia into the Hbrary.
"What can it bel" thought Sylvia, following her
aunt and considerably startled. "It must be some-
thing awful to change Aunt Emily like this! Fancy
her needing me I Appealingtomfforhelp,foradvicel"
Miss Bell went back into the library, dropping
her small belongings, her handkerchief, a glove,
her pocketbook, as she went. Sylvia, picking them
up and retaining them till her aunt was seated,
wondered, as she so often had before, at this pecu-
liar helplessness in her self-reliant aunt. Now it
seemed, from what she had just said, that Miss
Bell was about to reveal in another way that she
was not equal to carrying her burdens alone.
Miss Bell dropped with a long sigh into an en-
veloping chair. Sylvia drew close to her a low chair
and gently divested her aunt of her hat and hand-
bag. Then she took the low chair herself, and
leaned forward, her face on her hand.
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86 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"You look tired, Aunt Emily. Is anything
wrong?" she asked, softly. "Won't you let me
have tea for you and a biscuit?"
Miss Betl caught at Sylvia as she started to rise.
"Not between meals! Not even tea. I don't
approve of eating between meals," she said as if
Sylvia had proposed something shocking. "Sit
down, child. I'm sure I don't know why I'm going
to consult a girl of your age, unless it is that I have
no other kindred and your father would not under-
stand. After all, a woman is a woman, and at eigh-
teen a girl is almost a woman."
"I'll do my best, Aunt Emily," said Sylvia,
wondering more and more, but adjusting herself
in body and mind to the role of confidante.
"Well, Sylvia, to begin with, when I was not
much older than you there was someone — I knew a
young man very well — I — in a word, I expected to
marry," said Miss Bell.
Her Aunt Emily hesitating, embarrassed, and
over such a revelation, was to Sylvia so amazing
that she could hardly credit her eyes and ears.
"Oh, Aunt Emilyl Really? Were you engaged?"
she cried.
" No, I had not pledged my word. He had
several times asked me to marry him, but I was
reluctant. I think girls were more coy then, don't
you? Than now, I mean?" said Miss Bell. "I
had fully made up my mind. I knew that I should
be miserable to live without him, but I clung to my
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"The Heaven Such Grace Did Lend Her" 87
individuality, if I may so express it. Yet of course
he knew that I should at last say 'y^s', since if I had
not meant to I should have ended it at once. The
girls of my generation were more reserved than
yours."
" Hard on the man ! " said Sylvia, cheerfully.
"I can't imagine liking any one well enough to marry
him and leave Father, but if I liked him well
enough I can't imagine not saying so and marrying
him I "
"You are not at all the sort of girl I was!" sighed
Miss Bell. "It was one of those situations for
which there is no exact word. An understanding
comes nearest to fitting it. I was not engaged, but
we both understood that one day I should marry
this man. And then, my dear, there came along
the other girl!"
"Aunt Emily! How dramatic! How awfuU"
Sylvia hastily amended her comment, realizing that
she was betraying her enjoyment of a situation fa-
miliar in novels.
"Dramatic it may have been. Awful, outrageous,
it certainly was," said Miss Bell. "Sylvia, she was
a girl in the worst possible taste. Her colouring,
her manners, her voice, her costumes were all flam-
boyant, loud — really, my dear, I'm afraid I must
say vulgar. One doesn't like to condemn strongly
a person who But she was common, quite com-
mon, Sylvia. It is true. I was indignant, humiliated,
that I, Emily Bell, could appear in the belittling
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88 '* Who Is Sylvia?"
position of a rival to a person not in any way of my
own class. Sylvia, it was galling. He was attracted
from the first."
"Very likely she said funny things and made
things lively. Girls like that often are amusing, and
boys like to be amused," said young Sylvia, indis-
creetly, remembering how Miss Bell had always
disapproved her own romping, and might have been
a dull girl.
"Amused! I assure you, my dear, that the girl
was impossible, quite impossible!" said Miss Bell,
rigid with protest against Sylvia's explanation. "I
made him clearly understand that I would not for an
instant submit to being put upon even an apparent
comparative equality with this — this girl I He must
choose. Sylvia, he chose. Perhaps, more correctly
speaking, he drifted in the direction easiest to follow.
He came to see me, but I knew that he went the
evening before to call on her. He came to see me
again, but I was not at home to him. I never
received him again. He married that dreadful,
common person. He could not have been happy.
Sylvia, I have not been happy; I have been a lonely
woman, and I sometimes have blamed myself for
not having more patiently tried to show him his
fatal error."
"Poor Aunt Emily! I had no idea you'd had
trouble like this! I never would have guessed you'd
ever thought of marrying! He almost had to go to
the other house, didn't he, when you shut your door
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"The Heaven Suck Grace tHd Lend Her" 89
to him?" said Sylvia, whose directness and inex-
perience made her unable to cope with this con-
Bdence.
"Ah, my dear, that is precisely it!" cried Miss
Bell, nevertheless finding this suggestion a balm to
her pride. "I drove him to desperation; I drove
him from me. It was because my ideal was too
high to tolerate the least 'little rift within the lute*,
but I surely 'made the music mute'."
"Tennyson's rather milk-and-watery for such a
dreadful thing as a big love gone wrong, isn't he?"
cried boyish Sylvia. "Well, Aunt Emily, you can't
help it now. What's the use of bothering over it?
I'm sorry you had such a tumble when you were
young, but look what a nice life you've had, after all,
and you do enjoy being Miss Bell. You'd have
lost that if you'd been Mrs. Whatever-it-was. It
was all long ago, wasn't it?"
"It doesn't seem so to me, because one always
continues to live in the atmosphere of her most vital
experience," said Miss Bell, "but it was when your
father was four years old, and I was nearly twenty.
I distinctly recall that I was making his first kilts
the day that I saw this young man for the last time.
Little boys of that period wore plaid kilts as a sort
of vestibule to manly habiliments, donned between
their white skirts and first trousers, and I was mak-
ing Clement's little Stuart plaid kilt when I last saw
my lover."
Sylvia looked helpless at this statement. It
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90 "Who Is Sylvia?"
seemed to relegate the whole affair into the period
of Mary Stuart's love affairs to picture her father
getting a Stuart plaid kilt, at the age of four, when
it all happened.
" But you hinted that there must be some point
in my telling you this story," Miss Bell went on.
"Yes, my dear, there is. Though I never saw these
people again I have known of their history. The
woman died some eight years ago, leaving her
husband with a little girl less than a month old.
Other children had died; this was the only living
one. Now the child's father also is dead."
Miss Bell paused. Sylvia saw her aunt's lips
twitch, her face twist convulsively. Her Aunt
Emily, severe, selfcontained, proud Miss Bell,
wanted to weep for the man whom she had loved all
these years, who had preferred another to her.
Sylvia put out her hand and patted Aunt Emily's,
understanding at last, though dimly, something of
the vitality of love and the pang of loneliness and loss.
Miss Belt accepted her silent sympathy gratefully.
She clasped the long, strong, sun-browned hand and
held it as if it sustained her.
"Sylvia," she resumed, "that child is friendless,
and, Sylvia, her father named her Emily I I won-
der — I came to ask you if you thought that it is my
duty to take her, bring her up? It would be a risk;
she might be like her mother."
"Aunt Emily, I do think you should take her!"
cried Sylvia, unhesitatingly. "As to being like her
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"The Heaoen Such Grace Did Lend Her" 91
mother, people are quite unlike their nearest rela-
tives. See how unHke father and me you are I
And I've heard — Gerald Ritchie was saying just the
other day — ^that it's a fact that girls nearly always are
like their father's side, not the mother's. Wouldn't
it be great for you to have a little daughter eight
years old! And she would be your daughter, really,
if things hadn't gone wrong I Do take her, Aunt
Emily, dol"
"Sylvia I" gasped Miss Bell, aghast at this rapid
decision and its manner of making. "It's too serious
a matter to decide ofF-hand."
"Not a bit of it!" declared Sylvia. "Here you are
a lonely woman. Here is a lonely child, named for
you, having a claim upon you. And here's a chance
to make reparation if you weren't patient enough,
didn't coax the little girl's father, when you were a
girl, but just laid down a regular ultimatum — like
the Allies'! — and the unladylike girl got him. So
why in the world shouldn't you hurry to make every-
thing nice all around ? What in the world is there to
wait for?"
"Sylvia, my small fortune would be yours. If I
take this child I shall undoubtedly feel compelled to
provide for her, instead. Her father never got on.
It is only just that I should tell you that you may
lose by this step. I will never put aside the claims
of my nearest of kin. If you object to this adoption
you are within your rights to do so, and I will not
deprive you, nor run the chance of ultimately de-
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92 "Who Is Sylvia?"
priving you, without your full knowledge and con-
sent."
"You dear old thing," cried Sylvia, kissing her
aunt to the suq>rise of them both, for caresses were
not common between this pair of relatives. "If
that's all, take twins I"
She jumped up, laughing and stretching out Her
arms above her shining brown head that surmounted
her slender five feet seven of height.
"What do you suppose I want of your money,
dear Aunt Emily?" she cried. "Haven't I enough?
I have my home and plenty, and Father will never
squander it, nor I. And if I got quite poor, couldn't
I earn a noble livelihood as a pilot in this harbour?
Why, Aunt Emily, I don't care that for money! I
could be happy on the least little income with my
health, my books, my catboat, my O'Malley, and,
maybe, with my fatherumsl I don't care that for
money, truly!"
Sylvia snapped her fingers high above her head
and swung around in a few steps of a dance
measure.
"How perfectly lovely it is that you'll take the
little girl! Shall you call her Emily Bell, or let her
keep her own name? If she remembers her father —
and at eight she must — she'd rather keep his name.
It would be nicer for her to call you auntie, anyway.
I'm awfully pleased, delighted I Aunt Emily, you will
let her romp, won't you? Get dirty, tear around?
Please let me put in a word for her, and beg you to
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"The Heaven Such Grace Did Lend Her" 93
let her have dandy, dirty, free times — even overalls,
if she wants them!"
"Was I such a dragon to you, Sylvia?" asked
Miss Bell, wiping away tears which she would not let
fall, and half laughing.
"Pretty bad. Aunt Emily. You never approved
me, and I was not half so black as you painted me,
neither my morals nor my little grubby hands,"
cried Sylvia. "Thanks for trusting me and con-
sulting me now. Aunt Emily. I consider that a
promotion. I hear my father and your brother
coming in from the lab. like one man, in perfect
unanimity. Shall we go meet him?" cried Sylvia,
turning joyously, as she always did, toward the
steps which she heard in the hall. .
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER VII
"That She Might Admired Be"
T WASN'T looking for you, Emily, for at least two
■'■ months. You never can be trolled from the
mountains till everyone else considers the seashore
unseasonable — I'm glad you came when it is at its
best, but how did you happen to descend from the
White Mountain peaks?" asked Mr. Bell when he
and his much older sister were estabhshed on the
piazza after tea, Sylvia in the piazza couch at the end>
with O'Malley slowly insinuating himself closer, in-
tending ultimately to get up beside her.
"I didn't descend. I did not ascend this year,
Clement," replied Miss Bell, "I've been at home.
This is because I've expected what has happened. Do
you remember Hubert Anstruther?" asked Miss Bell.
"Why, I recall the name," said Mr. Bell, slowly,
considering. " I don't remember its bearer. Seems
to me — weren't you engaged to him? I have an
idea — —"
was engaged to him!" Miss Bell inter-
with a snap, while Sylvia wondered that
:her, who so delicately handled his labo-
mens, could be so masculinely clumsy.
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"That She Might Admired Be" 95
"He is dead. His wife died eight years ago, and
the baby she left is now alone. Her name is Emily.
I came to consult Sylvia about taking her to bring
up. You, too, of course, but chiefly Sylvia. A
woman, however young, has more sense than a man
in these things. Sylvia approves warmly. But if
this child stayed with me as my adopted daughter
I should leave her what I have. This would deprive
Sylvia. She is supremely indifferent to money
now, but she has no experience of its value. I want
you to consider this aspect of it for her, Qement.
I have no intention, nor desire, to be unjust to
Sylvia. I admire her exceedingly and am very
fond of her, fonder of her than of any one in the
world, in fact." Miss Bell made her statements
without the least display of feeling behind them,
nevertheless Sylvia was utterly amazed by this
last one. She knew that her aunt's "conversation
was yea and nay," and that if she said that she was
very fond of Sylvia, very fond she was, and also that
she admired her when she said she did, but it struck
Sylvia as unbelievable, so long had she been op-
pressed as she grew up by Miss Emily Bell's dis-
approval of her boat-sailing, old-clothes wearing,
untrammelled manner of life.
" Aunt Emily, it's mighty nice of you to say that, "
cried Sylvia, upsetting at once O'Malley's plans and
his body by springing to her feet and shaking out her
thin white skirt. " I hear one of the boys coming,
and I'll take him around to the other side of the
3.n.iiffid by Google
96 *'IFho Is Sylvia?"
piazza, or maybe he wants me to go somewhere.
You and Father can settle the finances; as far as I'm
concerned they are settled."
"How could you hear a boy coming? Where is
he?" demanded Miss Betl.
"He hasn't come around the comer yet, but I
heard him on the next street." Sylvia laughed
delightedly over her mystery, and fled without ex-
plaining it. But as she went she heard her father
say: "The Paxton boys have fallen into the way
of announcing themselves by whistling: "Who is
Sylvia?' as they approach. I often wish some of
them had a truer ear; it's rather beyond some of them
to compass that air. Sylvia doesn't need your
money, Emily. I'm not ambitious for wealth
for my girl. She'll have enough to keep up our
present manner of life, which to my mind is pre-
cisely the right manner; plenty even for pretty
clothes, pleasure, books, and moderate travel; not
enough to be burdensome, nor tempt to excess in
any way. Take your little girl, by all means, with-
out hesitating on account of my big girl."
Sylvia had been standing at the head of the steps,
awaiting her guest whom she had heard, as her father
had explained, whisthng the air of Shakespeare's
praise of another Sylvia before he turned into the
street upon the comer of which the Bell place stood.
To her surprise the visitor proved to be Jack
Jarvis, the new-comer to Paxton; she had expected
to see Lloyd, or Gerald Ritchie, and perhaps it was
3.n.iiffid by Google
"That She Might Admiud Be" 97
a slight disappointment that made her say, a trifie
sharply :
"Well, Mr. Jarvis, I thought it would be one of
our* own crowd. Where did you learn — or did you
whistle that song by chance? At least you do
whistle it correctly."
"Where did I leani that the 'swains who commend
her* whistled *Who is Sylvia?' when they were coming
here f " said Jack Jarvis, coming up the steps.
"Why, I came here once with Lloyd Hapgood, and
he \^histled it. Then I came with Gerald Ritchie,
and he whistled it, and I caught on. It's not so
hard, once you know what that song's about. You'd
be surprised to find some of the New Yorkers not so
bad at catching on to harder clues than that! Say,
Miss Bell, won't you take me in, among the other
young folks? Call me Jack, you know? Mr. Jarvis
sounds so ridiculous, especially in a nice seashore
place like this. And I'd no end tike to call you
Sylvia!"
"I don't want to," said Sylvia, frankly. "I'm
beginning to feel old enough to make distinctions;
I'm eighteen, you see. I met you at my birthday
party when I became eighteen, so it seems fitting
that you should be a boundary mark!"
Then seeing that Jack Jarvis's pleasant young
face really took on a hurt expression, and being a
girt who was friendly to all things, biped and
quadruped, and who was also almost devoid of co-
quetry, or the least desire of conquest, Sylvia re-
3.n.iiffid by Google
98 "Who Is Sylvia?"
lented. "Maybe we'll get first-name chummy after
a little while, but just wait a minute! You're
Ruth Hapgood's friend, or you know her better
than me, and any one that Ruth approves, or who
has sense enough to appreciate Ruth, I'll take for a
friend, too." Sylvia hoped that this announcement
would delicately convey to Jack Jarvis that he would
be admitted to her friendship only by admiring
Ruth more than he did herself.
Jack laughed a little; Sylvia doubted her skill
as she recognized perception of her purpose in Jack's
laugh. Perhaps New Yorkers were better at "catch-
ing on" than she would have had them.
"Great girl, Miss Sylvia Bell!" Jack Jarvis said
with a comical look. "Loads of fun to be a shuttle-
cock or a tennis ball I Ruth drives over the net
herself, but balls don't always drop on the last
stroke into the court you're hitting them up fori
I wish you'd come to New York this winter.
Ruth, too, of coursel" Jack added, hastily, with a
laugh. "My sister's young, married, has an apart-
ment right in the middle of things, and takes 'em
all in — box at opera, all the shows, in fact, the whole
show I She'd be crazy to get you down, and maybe
I wouldn't like to trot you around! Not half bad,
little old New York, when you know how to get at
it. I'll have Peggy — Peg o' My Heart, I call her —
come here when she's back, before she goes to the
Berkshires; she's in London, went in May, comes
back about the first of September, unless she takes
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"That She Might Admired Be" 99
in Scotland till October. Anyway, October's not
too tate. Peg's a peach, beauty, too, if she is my
sister, and I know you'd get on, and the way she's got
all the good times going right on her chatelaine's
a sight! Would you come down, Syl — Miss Bell?"
"Mercy me!" cried Sylvia. "Must I refuse, or
accept on the spot an invitation from someone who
doesn't know I'm alive to be invited? And your
poor sister now sleeping in bHssfuI ignorance over
in London! I'm sure I can't say what I'd do if
everything that never has happened did happen.
I suppose you acquired this pace crossing New York
streets? Father is entertaining his sister on the
moon end, the east end of the piazza. Sorry, but
won't you come and sit on the west end ? No moon
and no sea on that side, but there's a breeze there."
"Sure's death and the taxes, I forgot I was sent
on an errand I" exclaimed Jack. "Sally Meade —
she doesn't mind first names — sent me after you.
Most of your crowd is there and she, they, want
you. Some of the other fellows were coming to fetch
you, but I wanted to, and that peacherino of a Ruth
Hapgood engineered it so I got the contract. Will
you come?"
"Yes, I think Aunt Emily won't mind; she wants
to see Father alone, I'm sure," said Sylvia. "Aunt
Emily," she added, going back to the east end of the
piazza, "Sally Meade sent for me. Do you mind
if I go around to her house for a while? I won't
stay late."
r:,- ..k..C00qIc
144516B
loo "Who Is Sylvia?"
"Not at all," said Aunt Emily, graciously. "I
shall stay here a few days. Are you properly
dressed? Is it a dance P"
"Nothing special on, is there, Mr. Jarvis?" asked
Sylvia, turning back to the messenger. "Aunt
Emily, this is Mr. Jarvis, spending the summer here.
My aunt. Miss Bell, Mr. Jarvis. Please look after
him while I do something to my hair; it's probably
all over the lot; it usually is!"
Sylvia ran away, she rarely walked, and came
back with her masses of shining brown hair crown-
ing her head in the individual way that she always
dressed it, partly because its quantity allowed
little choice, partly because she was Sylvia, who
imparted to everything about her that effect of its
being peculiar to herself.
It chanced that the thin white frock which she
wore that evening, simple though it was, suited her
to perfection. Tall and slender, brown of tint, yet
flecklessly fair; her dark blue eyes alight with
happiness and sweetness under their long, dark
lashes; her delicate, straight nose the least bit tilted
upward above her full curving lips; her handsome
head home up on her slender neck with a pretty
poise of dignity to offset the sensitive gentleness of
her lips, Sylvia Bell was a picture as she stood in the
doorway, the lovelier that she did not seem in the
least aware of her effect.
"I'm ready," she announced. "Sorry to be so
long, but I found I couldn't make myself tidy with
3.n.iiffid by Google
"That She Might Admired Be" loi
merely adjusting hairpins, had to take the whole
thing down! But you didn't deHver your message,
Mr. Jarvis, or we'd have been there by now. I
took these shoes; you never can tell! Only at
Sally's we're more likely to dance than anywhere I
know. Mrs. Meade plays for dancing better than
any one in this world, and she's always willing."
"Give me your shoes." Jack Jarvis put out his
hand for Sylvia's bag of wide blue ribbon, brocaded
with crushed pink roses, and stuck it in his pocket.
Then he laid over her shoulders her long cape of an
indescribable shade of American Beauty red broad-
cloth; his face, invisible to Sylvia as he stood behind
her, was clearly seen by her father and aunt.
"Good-bye, Parent and Guardian!" said Sylvia,
kissing them both good-night, without a thought for
her perturbed escort. "Be quite good while I'm
gone, and don't lock up when you go to bed.
Though I truly will not stay late. O'Malley, dog of
the world, you may come, if it's any satisfaction to
he on Sally's piazza waiting for me, and I know it
is, old Devotion. Sally never minds."
Sylvia ran down the steps, O'Malley rejoicingly
rushing after her. She waved the corner of her
cape at him for him to catch, paying slight attention
to Jack who came after the girl and the dog in a sort
of daze of delight.
"That young man is falling in love with Sylvia;
who is heF" said Aunt Emily, the instant they
were beyond hearing.
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102 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
"He is Jack Jarvis ; his father is fabulously wealthy;
they are prominent in many important matters in
New York, and he seems a nice boy. Heaven help
him, if he falls in love with Sylvia! I wouldn't dare
conjecture what she would do to him. He rather
fancied little Ruth when he first came, and Sylvia
will have him drawn and quartered if he attempts
to veer to her," laughed Mr. Bell in high delight
over his loyal and high-spirited girl..
" But a brilhant marriage, wouldn't it be,dement ?"
Miss Bell suggested.
"Oh, yes, it would be," said Mr. Bell, indifferently.
"If it were right in other, more important ways.
Sylvia will never marry for ambition — if she marries.
It certainly is far from her thoughts now."
Sally Meade hailed Sylvia with acclaim. "Thought
you'd never get here and had murdered Jackie
into the bargain!" she declared, almost [dragging
Sylvia into the house after her.
Sally was not only not pretty; she was downright
plain, a swarthily dark girl, with square features and
chin, or at least her forehead and the end of her
nose were square, and her thick midnight dark hair
heightened the effect by the way she arranged it.
Sally was mannish, whereas Sylvia was boyish; Sally
lacked all the delicate girlish ways which, in Sylvia,
were always cropping out to offset her boyish-
ness. Sally was Uke a daughter of Vulcan; Syl-
via was like Diana, free of restraints, but always
maidenly.
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"That She Might Admired Be" 103
Sylvia heartily liked Sally Meade; she truly said
of her that "you always knew where to find Sally;
that she struck right out from the shoulder, and sent
her balls straight to centre field; no fouls were
batted backward by Sally."
"You're needed, Sylvia, my duck," declared
Sally as she forcibly towed Sylvia into the house.
"Maida Clayton got the crowd together over at High
Tide, and they wanted to dance. There wasn't any
one to play, so they decamped for my willing mother
and our house. Maida has the little Elmsley girl
along. I don't know, but I suspect she means to
get back at you, and you notice you didn't get
a telephone call from High Tide to come over;
some of the rest did ! Sylvia, Maida Clayton has
it in for you since you decamped from that beast
of a dance and she'll never rest till she pays you
back."
"Mercy, I didn't know there was a feud on!"
cried Sylvia, stopping short. "I wouldn't have
come for a scrap; I thought it was just our usual
sort of time. Maybe I'd better go back, Sally;
no one has seen mel"
"You'll not go back not one inch, and there's no
scrap on, nor will be, though it's sort of feudy on
Maida's side. What do you suppose I'd he doing
with a scrap in my own house f Not for your little
Sally-ratusI Especially against you. Captain Syl-
via, head of this Paxton force!" declared Sally,
warmly. " If you want to know how Maida Clayton
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104 "Who Is Sylvia?"
would like to crush you, I'll tell you: By swiping
Gerald Ritchie, but that young medicine man's got
his eye out for cases!"
"Oh, Sally Meade, how silly I " Sylvia cried,
shrugging back her shoulders to let Sally catch her
cape from them. "It's so ridiculous to talk as
if I tell you, Sally Meade, I simply will not grow
up!"
"Five feet seven, eighteen her last birthday,
everybody dippy over her! .Where are the snows of
yesterday?" chuckled Sally, admiringly.
"Oh, for goodness' sake!" Sylvia protested.
"What's Maida's game?"
"Penochle — knuckle under," said Sally.
"Sally, you're getting feeble-minded! Let's go
in," said Sylvia, giving up Sally's case as hopeless.
In spite of her own deficiency of good looks,
Sally Meade felt for Sylvia a sort of adoration;
she exulted in her beauty, her talents, her character.
Now she did what few girls would, or could, have
done, but Sally sought nothing for herself which
other girls seek; she had made up her mind that they
were not for her, and if she minded it no one ever
knew it. Yet Sally won her own sort of admiration,
well worth having. She held it lightly as most of
us hold what we have, denied something that seems
to us better worth the having. Now Sally de-
liberately placed her rather dumpy figure and her
plain face beside Sylvia's graceful height and beauty,
and came into the room with her as a foil to set
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"That She Might Admired Be" 105
off the girl whom she worshipped. Sylvia guessed
nothing of this, but came forward smiling, not
realizing that she looked, in her floating, spotless
white, hke a nymph who had become a part of her
forest streams and early morning dewy skies.
"Hallo, girls and boys!" Sylvia cried. "I nearly
missed it, but Sally sent for me. My aunt, Miss
Bell, came to-day and I was kept in; I suppose
I'd have stayed in, if Sally hadn't sent Mr. Jarvis
with a witch hazel wand to hnd me."
"Quite sure it would have been a loss and that
everybody wanted her, " said Maida Clayton, vin-
dictively, into the ear of Hermione Elmsley, the
little dancer.
"Everybody does want her! She is a great,
great loss when she stays away!" said Hermione,
to Maida's boundless amazement. "Feel the differ-
ence in this room since she came into it, so tall, so
beautiful, so, so How shall I say it? So white
and shining!"
"For the love of Pete, Miss Hermione Elmsley!
I fail to see it," said Maida.
"I won't dance. Miss Clayton," persisted Her-
mione. "I will not do that dance."
"For fear Captain Sylvia Bell, the belle of Paxton
and the Bell Wether of its idiotic back-numbers of
girls and boys, won't appreciate it!" cried Maida,
so angry that she forgot caution.
"For fear Miss Bell may not like it," said Her-
mione, firmly. "I don't think it's in good taste
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lo6 "Who Is Sylvia?"
myself; I don't like to do it, ever, but you know I
need money. I'd die if I saw Sylvia Bell look as
she did that night at your house I I will take ofF my
costume, and come down and do anything else I
can to please you; not for pay." Hermione drew
around her a long white cloak in which she was
wrapped, and started to her feet.
"Anything wrong? Sick?" asked Sally Meade,
swooping down on their comer with keen suspicion
in her dark eyes.
" Hermione 's feet are too cold to dance," said
Maida, in a towering rage. "You went and sent
for that angelic lanky girl you're all tagging after,
and she's so snowy white she's given Hermione
cold feet!"
"Oh, come, Maida Clayton, no good having
apoplexy I " said Sally. " Do you suppose my mother
and I would let you put over anj^thing that Sylvia
wouldn't like? I mean if she hadn't been here, do
you imagine we'd stand for — for what we wouldn't
stand for? Mother's down on anything not lady-
like, and that night at your house I hated your cos-
tume and dance and the whole show — if you want
to know. If I'd had my wits about me I'd have
got out as Sylvia did, but I'm such a chump about
getting myself together to act in time on my con-
victions. Convict all right, Just the same. And
as to Sylvia Bell, why wouldn't we tag after her?
She doesn't try to pull us. She just goes right
along, only she always seems to go along a foot and
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"That She Might Admired Be'* 107
a half, or two feet above our level. Not a mean,
a shady, a doubtful thing about Sylvia. And
bubbling over with fun. And pretty. Well, say!
Don't have to look to see it. Everybody admires
her, old and young, men and women. Paxton's
proud of Sylvia Bell, Captain Sylvia! So don't
you imagine you can come in here and change any-
thing, because we know what we've got. We don't
grudge her anything, though every boy in the place
has a case on her, more or less, and Gerald Ritchie's
seems to be more!"
Wicked Sally knew where to plant her arrow.
Maida flushed, and was about to say something
angrier than before when Sylvia came over to
them.
"You're a nice hostess, Sally Meade!" she said.
"They're all waiting for you to decide whether to
dance or play games! Some of them want to
play regular foolish, forfeit games. Going to Jeru-
salem, and that kind. Come, start something.
But Miss Elmsley — maybe she was going to dance
for you, Sally?"
"Yes, come upstairs with her and me, Sylvia!
Miss Elmsley was just going up to get ready; weren't
you? Come," cried Sally, hastily, for she knew that
in an instant Maida would say something to Sylvia
which would be outrageous, and which, as hostess,
she would be obliged to resent. "No good turning
the house into a regular old Flanders field!" thought
Sally, the incorrigible.
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lo8 "Who I J Sylvia?"
To her relief Sylvia turned away; she had looked
smilingly at Maida, whom she had not seen since
the Hospital sewing meeting when Maida had been
so furious with her. She had not known whether
Maida would speak to her or not, and evidently
she would not. Sylvia had turned away to avoid
trouble, and Sally drew a long breath.
Sally's guests fell to playing old-fashioned games
with great zest, the majority proving to be in a
capricious mood that sent them to bridging the not-
long distance backward into their childhood.
No one but Sally Meade knew that Maida Clay-
ton had left the house in a violent temper, followed
by little Hermione Elmsley in tears. Sally did
not say anything to any one that night, but she
resolved to get to the bottom of the little dancer's
troubles the next day. She would get Sylvia, and
perhaps Ruth Hapgood, to help her. "If Sylvia
gets busy Hermione Elmsley will sing Lucrezia
Borgja: 'It's better to laugh than be sighing',"
thought admiring Sally.
As there was no dancing Sylvia had not needed
her dancing shoes till just before she was going
home. It was flying in the face of opportunity
to leave that house where such a pianist, and such
a player of dance music as Mrs. Meade was, with-
out one dance; the guests begged for one.
Mrs. Meade was ready — she was always ready
to give the Paxton young folk pleasure — when
Sylvia discovered that one of her dainty white
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"That She Might Admired Be" 109
silk pumps had been lost out of the bag which Jack
Jarvis handed to her when she asked him for it.
"Oh, dear! They are such comfy, such pretty
onesl" sighed Sylvia, regretting her loss. "My
shoes aren't heavy, but they're street shoes. Do
you mind, Sally?"
"Only if it bothers you, Sylvia," Sally had an-
swered, and Sylvia danced in her white kid street
pumps, not so agreeably, but not badly incom-
moded.
The Hapgoods were going home with Sylvia.
"Why mayn't we form a bodyguard, and all
escort Sylvia?" suggested Jack Jarvis.
"I can look after Ruth and her both," Lloyd
growled, but Sylvia pulled his sleeve.
"Let Jack Jarvis come, too, and walk with Ruth,
you goose!" she whispered.
Lloyd was helpless, so he submitted with what
grace he could command.
"Goose yourself, Tink!" he said after they were
out on the street, dropping behind the other pair.
"Ruth nothingi Don't you know he's swiped your
dancing shoe?"
"Lloyd, I'd box your ears if he wouldn't see me!"
cried Sylvia, stopping short in real annoyance. "He
has not! What for?"
"How do I know? Ever hear of Cinderella?"
growled Lloyd, annoyed himself.
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER VIII
"Is She Kind As She Is Fair?"
CYLVIA was up the next morning and out
*^ early to look for her lost dancing pump.
"It's too provoking!" she thought after a fruit-
less search along the way that she had gone to the
Meade house the night before. "I've not only
lost my beloved shoe — and I never had a pair
I liked so well — but I've lost my sail. I never missed
so many mornings since I owned The Walloping
Window Blind as I have this summer. I wonder
if it can be growing up, creeping in around me when
I'm not looking. It shall not! I'll look from now
on. I am having more to do with the girls and
boys. I'm not so solitary and free as I was. I
never thought about it. Sylvia Bell, my poor
bhnd, doting, trusting creature, eighteen years old
will get you if you don't watch out I"
She turned from the foot of Sally's steps and began
to retrace her course, still looking on either hand and
poking in the grass along the sidewalks as she went,
although a white shoe could not be hidden; the turf
was kept short.
"Could it possibly be that Lloyd guessed right?"
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"Is She Kind As She Is Fair?" iii
thought Sylvia. "No; he wouldn't! Why should
he? So utterly silly in the first place, and, besides,
what would he want of my shoe? He'd better be
sensible! Flubdub! Stealing a shoe! Fancy! If
there's anything sillier than silliness " Sylvia
became conscious of the phraseology of her thoughts,
laughed, and raced O'Malley for their home, throw-
ing her annoyance to the winds with a practical re-
solve to stay a young girl.
Sally Meade came over immediately after lunch;
Ruth was already there. These days which were
passing were important ones in the laboratory, to the
experiment drawing toward its completion. It was
understood by the girls that Sylvia would not be
free til! afternoon.
"Have some fudge, Sally," said Ruth, the instant
Sally appeared. "I made a lot, and it's too warm
to keep it; I brought some with me; it's turning
sugary."
"No apologies necessary, Ruthie!" laughed Sally.
"Fudge is sufficient reason for offering anybody
fudge! Sylvia, I came to talk about Hermione
Elmsley."
"I rather suspected there were things to say about
that girl. Nice, isn't she?" asked Sylvia.
"She's awfully nice," Sally said, emphatically.
"She's an orphan. An uncle's wife brought her
up, and now the uncle is dead and she hasn't any one
really related to her. The aunt had her taught
dancing, trained to be a professional; Hermione
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112 "Who Is Sylvia?"
showed talent and she really loved to learn. She
loves to dance still, but she's grown up and there's
a lot about it to bother her. People like the Qay-
tons, who don't seem to see any more than moles!
You know interpretative dancing can be perfectly
lovely, or perfectly ugly, and its ugliness lots of
people don't mind. We do, but lots of people are
colour-blind. Maida Clayton and her mother, for
instance — costumes and all, they don't see, or else
they don't care, what's in good taste and what
isn't. Hermione has taken the greatest liking to
you, Sylvia, and she refused Maida when she wanted
a dance Hermione kpew you'd hate. So Maida's
mad as hops with Hermione, and she won't give her
a rather big check she had promised her for private
work for Maida this summer. Hermione needs that
check like everything. She has her engagement at
the hotel, but it doesn't pay enough, and she needs
money, yet she has thrown over Maida. Now I
think it's up to us to stand by her. She says she's
going to be a true artist, and a true girl, and not use
her art except for really beautiful effects — she meant
effects on minds, as well as eyes. Now we ought to
help her out, I say; especially you who set this
matter going by bolting that night from Maida's,
and whom Hermione sets up as a sort of conscience."
"Oh, dear! I didn't stop to consider that night
at Maida's; just felt like getting out, and got out,
with Lloyd to back me up and take me. I don't
like it one bit to seem to have set myself up for a
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"Is She Kind As She Is Fair?" 113
censor! And I didn't, truly, I didn't I" cried Sylvia,
distressed. " But I don't mean I was wrong in the
other way. You can't be wrong when something
'goes against you,' as Cassie says. If it's food it'll
harm you, and if it's bigger than that, it's still
worse for you. But I'm only Captain Sylvia, and
captains have no business preaching, especially girl
captains at my age. But we ought to stand by
Hermione. She's a good deal of a trump. How
shall we do it?"
"Naturally, she won't take money unless she's
earned it. I haven't been able to see the way
myself, but I expect you to. You're like Senti-
mental Tommy in finding a way, Sylvia," declared
Sally.
"It's not so easy," began Sylvia, but Ruth in-
terrupted her with a little cry of triumph.
"Small, insignificant Ruth has it, " she cried. "I
wouldn't have it, but that I already had it — the
idea, I mean. Let's have a fete. Let's get the
Yacht Club people interested, and the night of the
fete have all the yachts, trimmed up and lighted, to
carry spectators across to Hen and Chickens Island,
and charge quite a good deal for tickets to see it, and
announce that the money was for expenses, and then
make part of the expense paying Hermione Elmsley
for training us."
"Ruth, for pity's sake! Training us! For what?
To sail over to Hen and Chickens by night? And
what would the spectators see? The island? The
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114 "Who Is Sylvia?"
boats? One another? Of all programmes! But
it does seem as though you'd left out something,"
cried Sylvia, while Sally fairly shrieked with laugh-
ter.
"Only the whole thing!" Ruth cried, laughing,
but half annoyed. "We'd have a Dance of the
Dryads and Naiads — or something on that order."
"Too bad, but I don't believe there are any more
creatures of that sort ending in 'ad'! But it begins
well, Ruthie," said Sylvia.
"Have a floor laid down over on the island, and a
place fixed up for an orchestra — I suppose the string
quartette from Baytide, with the two flutes added
which we have when we want to outdo ourselves!"
Ruth went on with growing enthusiasm. "And
all the dancers in costume, Greek, dryad and
naiad style."
."What did they wear? Draperies, chiefly; I'd
look well as either of those before-mentioned lassies,
now wouldn't I!" said Sally. "However, I don't
have to take part. Pretty nice scheme, and a big
one for a small thing like you to originate, Ruth
Hapgood."
"My brain is large however small my body may
be," declared Ruth, witheringly. "You certainly
would take part, Sally Meade; you're a dream of
a dancer! I suppose chitons are the proper thing,
but awfully nice ones, very full and floating; not
that sheeting eff'ect they usually have in school
stunts. I saw a Greek play once — cotton chitons,
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"Is Shi Kind As She Is Fair?" iij
gilt-paper hair fillets and belts — girdles. Girls,
it was awful! Funny, though! We'd make the
boys take part, and we'd dress them up in more
solid stuff, but ours would be — misty I " Ruth
waved her hands to express the zephyr qualities
words did not fully convey.
"Well, but Hermione!" insisted Sylvia. "Where
does she come in ? Pretty nice fancy-dress ball you've
sketched, but Hermione ? Is only her name to fit
into your Grecian pattern F I thought we set out to
do something for her?"
"Didn't I say she should train us?" Ruth pro-
tested. "She'll teach us fancy dances, tableaux
vivants, and we'll pay her what she's lost by crossing
Maida — or more. And what we take in will go for
expenses. Paxton will be satisfied to help us to a
good time; everybody will love it! And no one but
ourselves need ever know that we got up the whole
thing in order to have expenses — Hermione's pay."
"Ruth Hapgood, I didn't suppose you had it in
you," declared Sally Meade, who saw with delight the
whole harmonious plan unfolded before her.
"It's truly great, Ruthie, you little wonder," cried
Sylvia. "When would it come off? I suppose that
would be decided after we saw how rapidly we took
to our training."
" It should be the night of the August full moon,"
said Sally. "That's when the hotels are fullest, and
that would give us most profit. Though if we did
run behind our expenses, it wouldn't matter. We'd
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like to make up a purse for Hermione, only she
wouldn't have it, so we won't care if we club together
to pay for the training for the dance. Isn't it great
to have settled anything so big in such a short time ? "
" If the rest, especially the boys, see it. We won't
tell any one but Lloyd about our reason for wanting
this. Maybe they won't help out with it," suggested
Sylvia.
"You know as well as I do that they follow your
lead as if you were Mary and they the lambs, Sylvia
Belli" said Sally. "Though Maida Clayton turns
that around, and calls you 'the Bell Wether,' because
they follow you. But it's the same idea."
"Stretch of politeness to call it an ideal" com-
mented Sylvia. *' I'd say it was idealess. Sally and
Ruthie, I'm going to have a caller. I see Enos
Coffin coming this way."
"Who in the world *' began Sally, but Ruth
cried:
"The person you went with Doctor Ritchie to
hunt up. I know. Come along, Sally; it's most
private and confidential I "
"Go sailing with me in the morning, but very, very
early?" Sylvia called after them, as Ruth and Sally
went down the steps.
"Not I, thanks!" Sally called back. "No early
bird gets this worm, 'cause it's a prudent worm that
stays in its comfy worm hole in the early dawn."
"I'll go, Sylvia. May Lloyd comeF" Ruth said.
"If he wants to. I don't mind Lloyd and you;
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"Is She Kind As She Is Fair?" 117
it's old timesy," said Sylvia, and turned to greet the
approaching Enos Coffin.
"Are you rooting for Lloyd, Ruth?" hinted Sally,
as the two girls gained the sidewalk.
"I haven't a brother, and Lloyd's almost like one
to me. Wouldn't you want Sylvia as near to you as
you could get her? She doesn't see one bit how
Lloyd feels, she's so used to him," said Ruth.
"Far be it from me to blame you for trying to
capture the splendidest girl in the world," said Sally,
heartily. "But it's not only that she doesn't see
Lloyd as she would a stranger. She won't see any
one, not that way I Sylvia Bell is more like Diana,
and Atalanta, and Daphne, and all that lot, than
any one I ever saw."
"To tell the truth, she's the only one I ever saw in
the least like them," said Ruth, whose quiet mousey
ways covered considerable straight seeing.
" Precious few girls arc like a clear, western breeze,
that won't let itself be tangled up in anything less
than a cloud, or a tall pine tree. That's Sylvia!"
"Poetical, maybe, but true surely," agreed Sally
Meade.
In the meantime ,Sylvia was saying:
"How do you do, Mr. Coffin f I am glad that you
came; I was wondering if I must look you up — or
AlKmetta."
,,"It would of made a wreck of my lifetime, Miss
Bell, if you'd of done so, as to Allimetta. My life-
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time and happiness is bound up in her, if I may so
strongly express it." Enos Coffin looked at Sylvia,
his expression so much more lugubrious than his
name that she marvelled at it.
"It doesn't seem to be too strong a way to express
it," said Sylvia. "Not if it is true. I suppose a
person may be necessary to happiness."
"Miss Bell, that's the truest thing you ever said,"
Enos sadly assured Sylvia. "How's the dog? How
are you, Mahoney? Or was it Muldoon you called
him? Mulligan! That's him; Mulligan! Miss Bell,
Allimetta's done it herself. She's wrecked my life-
time. Gone back on me, give me back the ring.
Here's the money your young lady workin' for you
loaned me. Allimetta's told me she'd rather have
someone dif'rent. No special one, just in genrul.
Would it be int'rusting to you to see the ring?"
"Yes," said Sylvia, having difficulty with her lips,
and being painfully conscious that her cheeks were
crimson from her struggle to achieve a suitable ex-
pression. "I'm sorry to hear this, but perhaps
Allimetta will think better of her decision. It's
some comfort that she has not found your successor.
That gives you hope."
"The word and me is strangers, Miss Bell," per-
sisted Enos. "My mother went so far as to ask
Allimetta and I to live with her." He shook his head
in a long pause. "Nothing doing!" be added at
last.
Sylvia was closely examining the ring which Enos
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"Is She Kind As She Is Fair?" 119
offered her, set with a great many tiny diamonds
massed together to make the marquise setting which
poor Enos had described to her as "marked keys."
"Sorry!" she murmured: "I never saw a ring Hke
this. Shall I call Norah Leary to acknowledge this
money?"
"No, miss; I have all confidences that you will
hand it to her," said Enos. "You might count it
in front of me; then there can't come up a statement
of my being error oneus." Enos made two distinct
words of the one he mispronounced. "What I'd
like to the tune of being gratified, would be if you was
to see Allimetta and urge her to see that till she gets
another sort of Coffin she can't get any one better'n
I to marry. Not to marry," Enos repeated after a
full stop, as if, had Allimetta wanted a chauffeur or a
gardener, it might have been another matter. Sylvia
choked so peculiarly that Enos eyed her anxiously.
" It would be a serious responsibility to urge any
one to marry if she were in doubt," she said. " But
if ever I meet Allimetta ?"
" Briggs," Enos supplied the last name eagerly.
"Allimetta Briggs," Sylvia gravely accepted it,
"I will see if anything can be done."
"I will make certain that you see her, miss, and I
sure am grateful. Paxton-by-the-Sea has awful
respect for Miss Captain Sylvia Bell, and your
recommend would be, as I might say, a. boost. I
will take my departures." Enos bowed himself
toward the steps, and Sylvia, hastily adding the last
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I20 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
bills to those she had already counted, finding the
sum correct, bade Enos Coffin good-bye and ran into
the house, O'Malley at her heels, to throw herself
face downward into the pillows of the library couch
and laugh till she cried, waving her feet and clicking
her heels together as she did so, finding outlet for her
mirth inadequate.
"Sylvia, my dear girl, what and why?" cried Miss
Bell, disapprovingly.
"Oh, I wonder what! And I'm sure I don't know
whyl" gasped Sylvia. She turned over on her side
and told her aunt about Enos Coffin's call with
renewed outbursts of glee.
Miss Bell laughed; Sylvia had been afraid that she
would not find it funny. "You are an extraordinary
girl," Miss Bell said, not abandoning her disapproval
nevertheless. "You seem to get mixed up with the
most bizarre affairs, and to know the most un-
necessary people. Now when I was a girl, I never
stepped beyond my own proper sphere."
"There, Aunt Emily, that's iti Now I under-
stand. I never could quite make it out before.
You sort of inherited your experiences, while I go
around collecting them, like the people gathering
seaweed in the fall," Sylvia cried, triumphantly.
"Of course that's it! But, oh, dear me, Aunt Emily,
they are necessary people. How could they be so
funny if they weren't necessary? Funny things
are so — so — vitally necessary ! I must go find
Norah and tell her that she has the money to send for
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"Is She Kind As She Is Fair?" 121
her little Roseleen. Not that Roseleen is not on the
ocean this moment, coming over, because she is.
I lent Norah the money, but she'll be relieved to have
her own to return to me. Nice girl, Norah. "
"Suppose you wait a moment and tell me this
part of the story also," suggested Miss Bell, laying
her hand detainingly on Sylvia's arm.
Sylvia willingly sat down again and did as her
aunt requested, telling the story of Norah's anxiety,
her devotion to the younger sister left alone at home,
too pretty to leave unguarded, and of Norah's
promise to their dead mother, and how she, Sylvia,
had come to the rescue and lent foolish Norah the
amount she had, so unwisely, let Enos Coffin have,
and of how within a >week little Roseleen would
arrive.
She told it so well, so simply, yet with such
literary instinct for the points of the story and its
inherent pathos, though she slighted her own part in
it, that Miss Bell looked moved when she had
finished.
"Sylvia, my dear, I am truly proud of you,"
she said, amazingly. "I objected strongly to your
Paxton nickname of Captain Sylvia, but I begin
to see that it may be a name of profound and beauti-
ful significance. A ship's captain looks after the
welfare of all the passengers. I begin to think, my
dear, that you will grow into a woman who looks after
the welfare of the passengers upon your course of
voyage through life, and that you may easily be
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122 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
Captain Sylvia, who steers straight and ministers
to her fellow voyagers."
"Aunt Emily! How nice, how very, nice! And
how nice of ybu to see such a chance for me!" cried
Sylvia, moved by her aunt's visible emotion in mak-
ing this prophecy for the girl whose youthful ways
she had disapproved, and to whom she had been a
thorn in the flesh, only less hurting because it was
usually withdrawn to a distance. Then Sylvia went
happily singing down the wide hall to And Norah
and make her happy.
"See, Norah, see!" she cried, coming into the kit-
chen, with Enos Coffin's roll of bills in her hand,
holding it aloft. "Here's your nice, tight wad of
wealth. The sad Enos Cofiin mourned his way
hither and has paid his debts. So now you needn't
feel that Roseleen is not sailing toward you on your
own provision for her."
" 'Deed, then, miss, she'd not be on her way but
for you," said Norah, taking the money absent-
mindedly, but instantly offering it back to Sylvia.
"Keep it, miss; 'tis yours, so 'tis, an' not mine,
an' that, nor anything else, cannot pay my debt to
you."
"Nonsense, Norah! What is it to lend to anyone
for a wee little time? I'll tell you! Keep that
money, and let me keep back a dollar or so now and
then from your wages, rather than pay it all at once.
When Roseleen comes you may want to buy her new
clothes. Sometimes people from across seas have
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"Is She Kind As She Is Fair?" 123
other fashions, when they come, from what we're
wearing here, and you'll need money to fit your
pretty little Roseleen out like American roses —
American Beauties, I suppose they must be)
Wouldn't that be better?" Sylvia suggested her
plan delicately, afraid of offending Norah.
But there was no need of such fear. Norah's eyes
filled, and she looked down, then she looked up, and
the same eyes laughed.
"You don't say the half of it, missl" she cried.
" 'Deed I was a queer one when I come over, with me
sturdy boots and me heavy dresses I But 'twas good
an' long-wearin' they was, an' I had the sense not to
discard 'em entirely, as some girls do, comin' in. But
I took care to wear 'em where the fine ladies born
here an' workin' in houses round about me wouldn't
be seein' 'em. Miss Sylvia, dear, it's the kindest
heart you have I ever had the luck to meet, an' it's
the kindness that thinks of small things many's the
one would pass over as nothin' that does be countin ',
to my way of thinkin', more than the big things that
everyone can see clear, an' more by token, never may
come your way to be doin' at all, at all! Sure, I'll
be glad to have money to buy for Roseleen what she'll
bewantin';1etherbeHke other girls, as all girls is like
one another in such matters. That's sayin' it don't
inconvenience you to keep back on my wages, an'
let me pay here an' there the part of my debt that can
be paid, leavin* the rest to God, who is better to be
owin' you than such as Norah Leary."
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124 "ffho Is Sylvia?"
"Norah, it doesn't bother one bit to straighten this
up slowly. I'm watching the shipping news and
when Roseleen's ship is due, off you go to New York
to meet her. About a week, a Uttle less, it should
be, Norah. Are you happy?" cried Sylvia.
"Happy, miss! How'lt I be sayln' it? Sure I sing
all the day long, till I think Cassandra 'tl put me out,
an' I waken in the night tremblin' an' cryin' with my
arms around Roseleen in my dream, fair dyin' with
happiness, an' callin' on her to tell me is she really
here," said Norah. "An' alt the while I'm singin' by
day, yet is my heart callin' on God to let a few
guardian angels, whose people are not in any danger
from accident, nor temptation, to go join Roseleen's
angel to keep from the ship she's on tempest an'
lightnin', icebergs, explosions, an' the like. Sure
it's a time of the joyfulness that's sharpened with
fear, an' makes it hard waitin'I"
"Norah, you're a dear!" cried Sylvia. "I'll let
my guardian angel help for a few days, and be extra
careful of myself till Roseleen's landed."
"Miss Sylvia," said Cassandra, and motioned
Sylvia into the pantry with sundry backward tosses
of her head, as if Norah could not construe this to
mean that she wanted to say something that Norah
must not hear.
"It's only this," murmured Cassie very low, when
Sylvia had followed her, and the swinging door into
the kitchen was shut. "I wanted to tell you that
you were correct as to Norah. It was worry that
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"Is She Kind Js She Is Fair?" l%$
ailed her. She is never forgetful now; does all, and
more that 1 want done, in my own way, too, and is
thoroughly satisfactory. I may say now that I
prefer her to Susie, who I did not expect would be
replaced."
"Fine, Cassiel I thought it would be so!" said
Sylvia, patting the gaunt woman who adored her and
had faithfully watched over her from her birth.
Sylvia ran off through the kitchen, waving her
hand to Norah in token of the joyful hours which
were just ahead. Norah turned to Cassandra,
wiping her eyes on the comer of her apron.
"Beautiful she is, Miss Sylvia, Cassandra, but she
is as kind, and kinder than she is beautiful. God
love her, as He does I What is it to be as fair as one
of the angels, an* kind an' pityin' like them?"
"It's very nice, indeed," said Cassandra, the New
Englander.
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER IX
"For Beauty Lives With Kindness"
YOU'RE right, 'Charles 0*Malley, the Irish
■*■ Dragoon,' by Charles Leverl" cried Sylvia,
running downstairs in her sea-stained, shabby, well-
loved costume for sailing to be met by O'Malley with
leaps and yelps of delight. "You are right entirelyl
I am going out, and, if you like, so are you. Oh, dog
of the world, isn't it great at something before six on
a morning like this?"
O'Malley clearly expressed his opinion that it was
indeed great. O'Malley never became dulled to the
joy of sailing, nor for that matter ever lost the first
keen rapture of his youth when his mistress invited
him to go anywhere with her, by land or sea.
"It's not only alive with birds this morning, but
it turns clumsy things with feet into birds! Don't
you feel winged, my terrier?" Sylvia asked, taking
O'Malley's head between her palms and rumpling it
delightfully till O'Malley could hardly endure his
excessive joy.
"Come, then, and let's be off. If Ruth and Lloyd
keep me waiting I don't know what I'll do to them
afterward!"
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"For Beauty Lives With Kindness" 127
Sylvia started on a run down the steps, down the
long walk, out the gate and over on the dunes,
O'Malley bounding ahead of her, but proud to
belong to a girl so tall and fleet of limb that it made
it worth while to exceed her speed.
Sylvia ran tike a deer. She did have a great deal
of the Diana likeness, even of likeness to the west
wind, to which her friends, Ruth and Sally, had
compared her. Her skirt was of heavy linen, sea-
stained, faded; her hat was a soft felt pulled down
close over her hair, and yet thus costumed, she
looked like a nymph as she ran free and fast across
the dune-top, with the ocean stretched out to her
left.
Sylvia slowed up a little, descending the precipi-
tous path from the dune to the beach, but still she
came down so recklessly that Gabriel Gaby, watching
her from his customary seat in front of his shack on
the sands, Mate purring on his shoulder, drew a
sharp breath inward.
"My gracious grandmotherl That girl must keep
the angels that have charge of her pretty busy lest
she dash her foot against a stonel" he muttered.
"Comin' down a path like that's if 'twas Pawl Mawl
in London, or one of the Paris bul'vardsl"
O'Malley dashed ahead of Sylvia, to greet Gabriel
Gaby and whine at Mate, whose every appearance
was a new pang to him that she was protected from
being chased. Mate herself thought O'Malley ex-
tremely silly and temperamental; she had long out-
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128 "JVho Is Sylvia?"
lived the time when she feared he might make things
unpleasant for a cat of her rank.
"Sylvie, you'H land a com-plete wreck at the
bottom o' that dune some day," Gabriel remon-
strated. "Why can't you walk?"
"I don't know, Gabriel Gabyl Still less do I
know why I can't fly; 1 fee! like flying," said Sylvia.
"I'm going out. Seen Ruth and Lloyd anywhere?"
"No, I haven't, not till this minute," Gabriel
twinkled at her. "What's that a-comin' down the
beach this minute? Looks to me Hke a pair of
cousins, last name Hapgood. Sylvia, do you know
what? I kinder miss your harmonicum. Why
don't you bring her down an' blow us a toon, Matey
an' me? I miss it. Miss you, too; you don't seem to
be anywheres lately!"
"Really, Gabriel Gaby, you've said it I" cried Syl-
via. "I don't get time to do arjrthing nice, nor
consecutive. I don't know why. Do you suppose
it's because I've been grown up such a short time, and
haven't learned how to place it? I will bring my
harmonica and play to you — play with you. Didn't
we use to have beautiful duets when I was still
young, and you taught me?"
Gabriel Gaby nodded hard. "Twas a pleasant
time, but I don't see why you can't keep it up,
once'n a while 't least. I sit here — Mate'n me —
meditatin', one of us purrin', t'other smokin', an'
the harmonicum'd fit in like it al'ays did, pretty neat.
You blew wonderful. Lot's o' girls don't have the
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"for Beauty Lives With Kindness" 129
wind, nor the gen'us for to blow steady an' ex-
pressive on that instrument."
"Gabriel, truly I'll try to come," Sylvia assured
him. "I haven't been to see my dear Mrs. Leveritt
in I don't know when."
"You certainly have not, Sylvia," Ruth coming
up corroborated her. "Aunt Helen said the other
day that she would be pleased to meet you again."
"Good morning," said Sylvia. "I know, Ruthie,
and I would rather see her than any one in Paxton —
of course Mr. Clement Bell excepted ! She did more
for me than I could say that summer when you Brst
came to visit her and I was a wild hobbledehoy of
fifteen, needing her gentle hints, and her dear ways,
and teaching. But she knows I tove her and want to
go. Aunt Emily leaves to-morrow; that will give me
the afternoon."
Lloyd had been untying Sylvia's pretty shellacked
tender, and had run her down to the water's edge to
go out to The Walloping Window Blind, tugging at
her mooring, much as O'Malley would have tugged
if he had been tied up and had seen his mistress on the
beach, coming to him.
"She's so impatient I" laughed Sylvia, pointing to
her beloved little craft.
The three young people went out to the catboat in
the tender. Sylvia would not let Lloyd row.
"No, Lloyd," she said. "This is my day. I'm
going to be fifteen years old and do precisely as I did
when I first knew you. Then you didn't feel it
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incumbent on you gallantly to do my work. If every
dog has his day, then the owner of such a dog as you
should have her day, isn't it so, my O'Malley? Sit
down, Lloyd, and be a boy who never sailed in a cat-
boat in all his life before, and hasn't reached the
point of thinking girls worth serving, anyway I"
"Girls may not be, stilll" muttered Lloyd with
significant emphasis.
Sylvia ignored him, and also tried to ignore the
annoyance in herself which this hint called forth.
Sylvia "hated nonsense," as she was always telling
herself, not caring to define what constituted non-
sense. To be a good comrade; to have happy days
filled with good times that entailed no responsibilities,
no consequences; to be light-hearted, free, gaily
affectionate to everyone whom she liked, Hking no
one enough to make her breath come one bit faster at
his approach; this would have described Sylvia's
ideal if she had put it into words. Sally Meade was
right; Sylvia was at the Atalanta stage of her develop-
ment, running away from what might entangle her
fleet-footed joy.
Sylvia got up the sail of her catboat unaided, but she
did concede to Lloyd the privilege of unfastening the
painter that held The Walloping Window Blind fast.
"Now, we're off!" she sighed, settling down into
the stem, pulling her hat over her eyes and jamming
her tiller down hard to swing around free of the red
buoy that danced foolishly on the top of the water
just beyond her mooring.
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"For Beauty Lives With Kindness" 131
O'Malley went forward and took his customary
place beside the mast, braced and cautious, though he
would dearly have liked a swim, provided he had not
got it by falling overboard.
"Is there anything in all the world Uke it?" Sylvia
murmured, stretching out her length, which was
great, and bracing her feet, while she loosened her
skirt at her knees with her old-time boyish motion.
"A car's not so bad, either," said Lloyd. "Gtoen-
dolen and I are coming after you at two to-day, Tink,
and you're going with me for such a spin in Gwen-
dolen as you never had yet; maybe to Boston. We'd
have dinner there at night and get back here by ten
or eleven. I've been having it in mind this long
while; to-day is the day when it will happen."
Sylvia shook her head. " I'm going to lunch with
Mrs. Ritchie to-day, Lloyd. No such mad trip for
me," she said.
" Break the engagement," growled Lloyd, looking
cross.
"To lunch? An engagement a week old, and with
an invalid old enough to be my mother?" remon-
strated Sylvia, and was annoyed with herself that
her colour, always quick to come and go, mounted
at the thought suggested by her saying that Mrs.
Ritchie might be her mother.
Ruth pounced on the word.
"Sure she doesn't want to be? Why does she ask
you to lunch, Sylvia?" she said.
"Yes. When fellows rope their mothers in to
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132 "Who Is Sylvia?"
back them up with a girl, that's another thing from
trotting a girl around and just making it jolly on
both sides," added Lloyd.
"Oh, dear; oh, dear me!" cried Sylvia, tears of
vexation springing into her eyes. "When it's such
a morning for sailing, and it's so perfectly great to be
out! Didn't I tell you it was to be one of our first
summer times? It's heaps worse than helping me
with the boat — I mean heaps less like ourselves that
first summer, to be suspecting such perfectly dis-
gusting things! Even you joining in, Ruth! Mrs.
Ritchie likes a young thing around, I suppose; {xrar
soul, shut in and suffering! You'd think if you two
find me such a marvel as you try to make me believe
I am, you'd be less puzzled to account for someone's
wanting me to come to see her. I think it's per-
fectly horrid, and I've a mind to put about and go
in!"
"Why, Sylvia, dear, please, please forgive me!
I'm terribly sorry!" cried Ruth, going over gingerly —
she never had quite come to feel that a boat was safe
to move about in — and putting her arms around
Sylvia, who passively allowed it, but made no
response.
"Most people wouldn't think it reflected discredit
on a girl to have a mother want her for Oh, I
won't, Iwon't say it, Sylvia!" Ruth cried,eagerly, for
Sylvia twitched herself away from her embrace. "Of
course poor Mrs. Ritchie would love to have you
come there if she were an elderly spinster, or the
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"For Beauty Lives With Kindness" 133
widow she is, with ten daughters, and no You
know what, Sylvia! I don't dare say the word!"
In spite of herself Sylvia laughed. "But it is
horrid to suspect things," she insisted.
" I don't see any use in sticking your head m a hay-
mow, and let a horse kick your feet off, declaring all
the time there isn't a horse because you don't see
him," growled Lloyd, not ready to jKeld his point.
"A fact is a fact, whether you like it or not, and if a
thing is so, the best way is to face it and act accord-
ingly."
"Oh, what stupid things boys are!" cried Sylvia,
this time laughing with such enjoyment of sulky
Lloyd that her ruffled feelings were smoothed.
"That's just like a boy to insist on facts, and want
labels stuck all over the place; making it impossible
to see anything except in one way! Of course that's
not the way to treat facts, you foolish boy! The
way to do is to ignore them, treat them as if they
were just the opposite of what they are, and the first
thing you know they'll feel forced to behave like that
other thing you call them, and where'll your fact
be — gone to pieces and reassembled in a new form I
Silly Lloyd!"
Lloyd stared at Sylvia, then reluctantly smiled.
"I'll be blessed if that's not exactly what you do.
Tinker Bell. And now I think of it, it does work.
But it doesn't suit me; I'd rather face things," he
said.
"And wring their little necks if they won't do what
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134 "Who Is Sylvia?"
you want them to," Sylvia supplemented him, mak-
ing him a derisive little grimace. "Sure you would I
You're downright honest, but a wee bit bossy, my
little lad. I'm outright enough, but I know you
come out better, and a long distance farther, if you
lead things with a pretty ribbon around their necks,
than if you wring their necks!"
" It's true that a girl can make things go her way
by pretending she doesn't see how they're headed,"
added Ruth, going over to Sylvia and abandoning
Lloyd without shame or hesitation.
"I'll be darned if 1 see how this deep wisdom
hitches up with Mrs. Ritchie, or Gerald Ritchie,"
said blundering Lloyd.
"Whose name no one has mentioned," hinted
Sylvia, sweetly. "Never mind, Lloyd, if you can't
see things always. Blind people are usually happy,
they say. Do you see that tallest tree over there on
Hen and Chickens Island ? Look out for your heads
when the boom swings over; I'm going to head her
for that tree."
Sylvia put her catboat about; it minded the helm
"Hke a breeze," as she said, and they settled down
to a long tack, dropping unpleasant subjects, and
enjoying the glorious morning, or its earliest hours,
for Sylvia had to get back to her father, and the
laboratory and the preceding breakfast, by eight
o'clock.
It was a perfect morning; The Walloping Window
Blind did herself and her skipper credit, and of
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"For Beauty Lives With Kindness" 135
course the three on board — four, for O'Malley de-
served counting — had a good time.
" But if you really want a decent sail you have to
go alone, with your dog, I'm discovering," thought
Sylvia after she had brought her small craft to her
mooting, had bidden Ruth and Lloyd good-bye and
was, rather slowly for her, walking home across the
dune. "If Ruth had come alone it wouldn't have
been half spoiled. Even if she did start a silly
notion, she wouldn't have mattered. I see one
thing: After you are grown up you've got to get girls
by themselves if you want a good time — unless it's a
dance, or car-driving, of course. But you can't
have a good time with boys around after you're past
sixteen or sol They fuss, they — they get silly I Boys
spoil everything after you're past sixteen."
With which piece of philosophy, from which some
girls of eighteen might have vehemently differed,
Sylvia cheered up and ran into the house to hurry into
land clothing, a pretty morning gown. Even though
her Aunt Emily had come to approve her, Sylvia
knew that it would risk a relapse from her favour if
her aunt were to see her tall niece in these shabby
garments which she still loved to wear.
" Short hours for your assistant to-day, Mr. Bell f "
hinted Sylvia, having eaten breakfast, seen her aunt
off to a round of calls in the summer colony, and
started, her hand in her father's arm, to walk with
him over the beautiful turf of the Bell place to the
laboratory.
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136 "fflio Is Sylvia?"
" Must she be early dismissed ? Why ? " asked Mr.
Bell, smiling into Sylvia's dark blue eyes, so like his
own, and so little below the level of his.
"To lunch with Mrs. Ritchie. She has sent me an
urgent invitation; I like her a great deal, and I felt
that I could hardly say 'no/ She's so ill, and so
patient, Fatherl" replied Sylvia.
"I know. She's a sweet woman, patient, as you
say, and suiFering. I'm glad to lend her my tall girl.
But, Sylvia, tread carefully! I can easily imagine
any one wanting my treasure for her own sake, but
Mrs. Ritchie is Gerald's mother, and a mother can
be a great assistance to her son," hinted Mr. Bell.
"Oh, Fatherl You, tool" cried Sylvia, blushing
painfully. "It takes all the snap out of being decent
and friendly!"
"My deatisait does!" cried Mr. Bell,self-reproach-
fully. " Never mind your cruel parent. Daughter, and
go your frank, honest way, unafraid. I'm better
fit to deal with specimens in the laboratory than
with fine issues of brain and heart, my Sylvia. "
"Father! How can you? That's worse than sus-
pecting that people want to steal your assistant for
their medical student sons," cried Sylvia.
Sylvia worked attentively in the laboratory until
noon, as she always worked. Her interest in this
work increased steadily, and now that the experi-
ment over which her father had dreamed and la-
boured for years was nearing its completion, which
would prove it a triumph, or a failure, Sylvia often
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"For Beauty Lives With Kindness" l^y
found herself tense with excitement during her
working hours. She was too young, too full of life
to keep her work before her during playtime.
At twelve o'clock Sylvia left her table, her carefully
coloured slides, recording progress of the specimens
under observation, dropped a swift kiss on her
father's head as she passed him, not disturbing him,
and hastened to dress for lunch.
Gerald Ritchie had arranged to fetch her in his
car at half-past twelve, but a half hour was enough
time to dress for Sylvia, who never made a long
business of her toilette.
She coiled her dark masses of hair around her head,
pulling it, soft and drooping, over the tips of her
pretty ears. Sylvia's hairdressing was always in-
dividual, a pretty, almost old-fashioned effect of soft,
lustrous tresses, full of natural ways of their own.
A shade of blue crepe meteor, which matched and
brought out the dark blue of her eyes, was her dress;
it fell in straight folds around her figure, simple
tucks its only adornment, and a fichu collar of finest
embroidered organdie came down to her belt, crossing
below the base of her shapely neck.
She put on a white Panama hat, trimmed with a
bow of wide velvet ribbon on one side, and took her
gloves in her hand to put them on in the cool library,
for the day had grown warm as the sun mounted.
" I feel particularly young-ladyfied, " thought
Sylvia. "It must be going to lunch with a lady of
fifty, and wearing a darker dress I I do like white!"
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138 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
But in her secret heart Sylvia knew that the feeling
of maturity had its root in the several warnings that
she had had of the possible object of this invitation,
and that she was waiting, not quite calmly, for
Gerald to take her in his car to lunch with his mother.
Gerald was prompt to the moment. Sylvia could
not know that he had waited near by for fifteen
minutes in order to be so.
He looked Sylvia over with unmistakable approval,
from her lovely face, flushed with a natural blush ; her
simple, fine gown; her remarkably good Panama
hat; her shoes, pretty, yet fit to walk in; her entire
effect of sweet maidenhood and absence of vanity.
"You don't wear tilted-stilt shoes, Sylvia," re-
marked Gerald, helping Sylvia out of the car at his
own gate.
"Well, you see I'm so likely to run, Gerald, I
couldn't," Sylvia answered, demurely, but her eyes
laughed.
Mrs. Ritchie's hair was snowy white. Her face,
which must have been remarkably pretty, was white
and thin; her whole drooping frame was eloquent of
the constant endurance of pain. But she greeted
Sylvia almost gaily, and not once during her visit
allowed her to feel the oppression of an invalid host-
ess.
Sylvia forgot all about herself in quick recognition
of this courage. She set herself to entertain this
poor lady, and in the invalid lost sight of Gerald
Ritchie's mother.
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"For Beauty Lives With Kindness" 139
Sylvia had the gift of amusing, as she had the gift
of sympathy. She made Mrs. Ritchie laugh more
than once with her account of Cassandra's fidelity
and its cast-iron quality which made Sylvia call her
Casabianca. Yet she never made Cassie absurd,
only funny in a way that was at the same time
admirable. O'Malley came in for his full share of
Sylvia's chatter. She found that Mrs. Ritchie truly
loved dogs; after that there was no trouble in paint-
ing O'Malley as he was — an amusing, dear fellow.
Gerald watched and listened, his shining eyes, his
mounting colour, his gentle, happy smile revealing
what he felt when he saw his mother made cheerful,
laughing, plainly enjoying and yielding herself up to
loving admiration for — Sylvia Belli
"What a girl! What a girl!" was all that Gerald
found to say to himself, but he said that so often,
with such fervour, that it included all that might have
been said of lovely Sylvia.
Gerald disappeared after lunch for a time; it did
not occur to Sylvia, till she had returned home, that
it was not an accidental disappearance.
"You have been a dear, a most dear, unselfish girl,
to come here to-day," said Mrs. Ritchie, drawing
Sylvia down beside her on a couch. "You can't
guess what a pleasure it has been to me, how much
you have given me out of your abundance of youth,
health, wit, and loveliness! My dear child, I do
thank you."
"Oh, Mrs. Ritchie, please!" Sylvia remonstrated.
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140 "IVko Is Sylvia?"
"It is kind of you to bother with a girl who can't
interest you much."
"You have interested me a great deal, but, my
dear, you know it's even more the joy of living that
goes out from you that refreshes me. You are a
lovable child, Sylvia Bell. I see almost no one but
Gerald. To be sure there never was such a son as
Gerald! From his childhood he has been truthful,
kind, chivalric, brave. You don't know what a
boy Gerald is; it's not a mother's partiality; it is
true!" Mrs. Ritchie spoke eagerly.
"I always thought he was nice," said Sylvia, trying
not to seem ill at ease. "When I was a small girl
I liked him; I didn't like most of the big boys; I was
afraid of them, but Gerald was always nice to the
small fry."
"Ah, that's it. That is Gerald," cried Gerald's
mother. "He is patient, sympathetic. He is a
devoted son to me, a hopeless invalid, and sick people
burden most boys, and many men. Don't you
think it speaks volumes for my son merely to say he
is everything that both a daughter and a son could
be?"
"I think many good qualities must go to make up
that great virtue, Mrs. Ritchie," said Sylvia, gently.
"I am glad that you have this comfort."
"Are you willing to play for my mother, Sylvia?"
asked Gerald Ritchie, returning at that moment.
"She would be glad of a little Beethoven and Schu-
mann, I knof<r."
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"For Beauty Lives With Kindness" 141
"Surely I will play, and I'd rather play Beethoven
than any one else, though he's beyond my depth,"
said Sylvia, rising instantly to go to the piano.
She had but taken her place and touched a few
chords by way of introduction to the instrument
when a gasp of pain frightened her, and she whirled
around to see Gerald catch his mother in his arms,
raise her as if she were a child, and go toward the
door.
"One of her seizures, Sylvia. Don't be frightened.
Don't come. Her maid and I will be enough.
Amuse yourself till I come back. Come to see
Mother again, soon," he said.
Mrs. Ritchie raised herself in Gerald's arms, halt-
ing him by a gesture.
"Sylvia, yes, come! We need you here. Be kind
to us both," she managed to say, but by a supreme
effort, her face dreadfully contorted with agony.
" Sylvia is always kind. Mother," said Gerald, and
carried his mother away. Sylvia sat motionless,
awaiting his return, hot liking to leave without seeing
him again, liking no more to carry out the arrange-
ment by which he was to take her home in his car.
She was almost decided to steal away when Gerald
returned.
"It's over now, Sylvia, for this time," he said.
"I am sorry you had to be so frightened. I hoped
she might get through the day without an attack,
though she rarely escapes one each day. She is
asleep; there will be no more trouble for another
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142 "Who Is Sylvia?"
twenty-four hours, probably; at least not for some
time. I'm sorry, Sylvia! '
"Goodness, Gerald, not for mef" cried Sylvia.
"I'm sorry enough, if it comes to that. Poor
Gerald! It's hard."
"Yes," said Gerald, simply. "This is why I'm
studying medicine. I've seen so much that I want to
be of some use; not only to Mother, to others."
And Sylvia felt her casual liking for this older boy
deepen into respect, admiration, and warm into real
friendliness.
"Fine old Gerald!" she said, as a boy would have
spoken, her eyes moist. "Now let me walk home;
I don't want to bother you."
"Do you honestly think that's the way not to
bother me?" asked Gerald with a little smile, and
Sylvia instantly yielded her point, warned by a note
of tenderness in his voice not to argue it with him.
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CHAPTER X
"Love Doth to Her Eyes Repair"
CYLVIA, I've decided to take the morning
*^ train," announced Miss Bell at bedtime. "It
allows me more leisure, I can do errands in Boston
which I'm anxious to attend to, and still get to New
York before dinner."
"Oh, Aunt Emily, I wonder — would it bother
you too dreadfully to take Norah with you? Rose-
leen — her little sister — gets into New York to-mor-
row, and Norah must be there to meet her. She
was going alone, but she's afraid of her life, and
I don't like to let her go alone. She doesn't know
the first thing about New York. Would tt be too
great a burden on you to see her safely there?"
Sylvia hesitated, but uttered her plea.
"If it were," said Spartan Aunt Emily, "I think
that would be no reason for not doing it. Of course
I will take the girl to New York. She is pretty, and
doesn't appear to be in the least fit to look after
herself. See how she lent her savings to the first
creature that asked her! I will not only take her
with me, but I will go with her to the ship. Unless
someone guarantees the young thing coming, no
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144 "^Ao /j Sylvia?"
one could conjecture where she may bring up. The
Ellis Island people may crate her and deport her!
I'll go with Norah to get her admitted; she's not the
one to face those immigration officers. I will stay
over a day in New York and see the matter through."
"Aunt Emily, aren't you splendidi" cried Sylvia.
"I think that's great of youl"
"The note of surprise in your voice, Sylvia Bell,
is not flattering," remarked Aunt Emily, dryly.
"I'm not in the least a sentimental woman, but I
hope that I recognize the obligation an elderly
gentlewoman has of looking after ignorant young
girls. Noblesse oblige, Sylvia. I am a Bell. Always
remember that you, also, are a Bell."
Miss Bell went with great dignity upstairs, and
Sylvia and her father looked at each other with
similar merriment in their eyes.
"Sort of like a tocsin, to be that sort of a Bell,
isn't it, Fatherums?" suggested Sylvia. "But really,
that's fine of Aunt Emily to see Norah and her
Roseleen through!"
"There never was a deficiency in your aunt's
principles, my dear. She does many unselfish,
fine acts. Rather she suJTers from a sort of rigour
and excess of principles. She fits them over every-
body's head, regardless of their age, size, or previous
condition of servitude," laughed Mr. Bell. "But
it would be an exceedingly well-regulated world if
Emily could get her principles adjusted on every-
body in it I"
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"Lovf Doth to Her Eyes Repair" 145
Thus on the following morning Miss Bell went
away, with meek Norah in her neat blue serge suit
and her small round straw hat.
Norah was duly grateful that she was to be
protected, and Roseleen brought into the country
without delays, but she was in mortal terror of the
coming hours under Miss Bell's relentless kindness,
and strove to shrink into a smaller space than her
body actually demanded.
"Good-bye, Sylvia Bell," said Miss Bell, pre-
senting her cool, pale cheek to Sylvia's warm young
lips. "I shall take little Emily Anstruther, then,
to bring up. It may, very likely will, end in her
being my heir. You are sure that you are willing?"
"More than willing, Aunt Emily; glad that you
will have her to love you," said Sylvia. "You know
that was all settled. But, Aunt Emily, plisase let me
say it! Do give the child heaps of fun, free fun, you
know — old clothes, romping, a dog, all those genuine,
sporty, lovely things! Then she'll be happy and
adore you. You don't think all that harmed me, after
all, do youf"
"No, Sylvia," replied Aunt Emily. "It did not.
I am willing to admit that your manners are ex-
cellent, quite simple and without self-consciousness
and, above all, without smartness. I loathe smart-
ness! And there is a dewy innocence about you that
is a great gift. I am willing to admit that you un-
doubtedly owe it to your solitary hours in the boat
and in the woods. And you have become a com-
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I4fi "If ho Is Sylvia?'*
petent housekeeper, a graceful hostess. Very well,
Sylvia, I will give the little Emily something of
your sort of childhood, as far as I can. She may
not have your tastes; I hope she may have! Next
winter I shall insist on your coming to me. A young
girl like you would have an immense influence on
a child; she would adore you and try to imitate
you. I only hope that she is not like her mother.
In any case, come and see what you think of your
adopted cousin. Good-bye, Sylvia. Good-bye, Clem-
ent. I feel much better for this visit and decision.'*
With this valediction Miss Bell followed Norah
into the taxicab, where she was timidly waiting for
her, and the guest was gone.
"Father, did you ever expect Aunt Emily to
want the hoydenish, hopeless Sylvia to visit her to
influence her adopted child?" asked Sylvia, tucking
her hand into her father's arm as usual on their
way to the liaboratory.
" I can't say, my dear, that I ever expected your
aunt to adopt a child. That seems to me so amazing
that you as an influence pale beside it," said Mr. Bell.
"Don't you see. Father, that Aunt Emily has
loved the child's father all her life and has mourned
his defection under the spell of the girl he married ?
Isn't it strange ? AuntEmilyt" Sylvia said, thought-
fully.
"Surely I see that," Mr. Bell answered. "Yes,
strange, perhaps, yet I don't know. Emily is not a
person to change. Her emotions so turn inward
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"Love Doth to Her Eyes Repair" 147
that they are bound to strike their roots all through
her. Be carefut how you begin to love, my daugh-
ter!"
"I'm not one bit afraid of the love in mel And
as to beginning, I'd have you know, Mr. Bell, that
the man I adore I began to love — " Sylvia paused
and made a rapid calculation — "seventeen years
and nine months ago, to the best of my knowledge
and belief!" she ended, triumphantly.
Mr. Bell shook his head with great melancholy.
"That's a long time, Miss Bell; nearly all your
life! That would mean that you began this in-
fatuation at the age of four months. I'm afraid,
very seriously afraid, that you will never outlive your
premature misfortune," he said.
"It wasn't premature; it was exactly on time!
And it's the greatest luck, not a misfortune!"
Sylvia cried, shaking her father's arm. "You're
no good as a confidant 1 A confidant's business is
to murmur: 'How sweet! How lovelyl How for-
tunate!' every time there's a half pause in the
story!"
Sylvia thought that she was going to have a
chance to test her theory that afternoon. She had
been to see Mrs. Leveritt, Ruth and Lloyd's lovely
Aunt Helen, who had been a great comfort and help
to the motherless girl in the days when she had been
lonely, in spite of O'Malley's devotion, when he was
her chief friend, and when the father, whom Sylvia
worshipped afar, did not realize fully the existence
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148 "Who Is Sylvia?"
of his baby g^rl as a young creature shooting up
into womanhood.
Mrs. Leveritt had given Sylvia, as far as lay in
her power, the woman's understanding sympathy,
the counsel, the love that she lacked, supplying
what Cassandra's devotion could not compass.
Mrs. Leveritt was childless, and between the woman
and the young girl, with their supplementary lack,
there sprang up a deep and lasting attachment.
Sylvia thought, rightly, that there were few such
gracious women as she whom Sylvia called Aunt
Helen, echoing Ruth and Lloyd, with a sense of
kinship to her at least equal to theirs.
Sylvia had found Mrs. Leveritt alone, and she
was glad of this, welcome as Ruth always was to her.
Ruth and Lloyd were off with Sally Meade on some
preUminary affair in connection with theGrecian Fete-
to-be, which was engrossing Sally completely. Sylvia
had told Mrs. Leveritt all about her luncheon at
Mrs. Ritchie's, with its pitiable ending.
"Gerald showed truly fine, dear, but — try not to
let pity sway you beyond its proper scope," Mrs.
Leveritt warned her. "It's not a durable motive
power if you let it turn in the wrong direction, or
go too far."
"Aunt Helen, I know thati" cried Sylvia. "After
I came home, and thought it over, it almost seemed —
I hate conceited rash judgments, but it did almost
seem as if that poor sick lady, nice as she is — she's
very nice! — ^was " Sylvia stopped.
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"Love Doth to Her Eyes Repair" 149
"Winding her weakness around you to draw
you in?" Mrs. Leveritt ended her sentence for her.
"Possibly. She knows that she must die — and
leave Gerald. After all, it is pardonable in a mother
to want to see her son safe and happy. But, Sylvia,
I would not be swayed too far by pity. In the end
it would not be kind to any one. My tall Sylvia
would not be happy looking down; she is framed by
nature to look up. Pity is always akin to con-
descension. You must admire the man you love,
Sylvia; not be sorry for him — if the day ever comes
at which we are hinting. "
"1 was sorry for Gerald, dreadfully sorry, but I
did admire him heaps, Aunt Helen. He was so
kind, so simple, so — so — nice. You can be sorry for a
person you admire, you know. Oh, I don't want
to think about these things. Aunt Helen. I'm as
happy and contented as I can be with Father and
O'Malley and my boat. Why can't people stay
where they belong, play in their own yards?"
cried Sylvia, impatienLly.
"Let you remain Comrade Sylvia? Well, dear,
one has to pay the penalty for all gain. People .have
a way of wanting to acquire what they see is de-
sirable, whatever it may be — house, pictures, horses,
yachts, cars — and Captain Sylvia I Never mind,
lass, dearl If you don't want to let any one in to
curtail your precious freedom, go your way serenely.
There's no reason in the world why any one should
intrude upon it." Mrs. Leveritt laughed as she
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I50 "Who Is Sylvia?"
spoke and kissed Sylvia good-bye, feeling sure that
someone would one day alter her mind, and secretly
cherishing the hope that it might be her nephew,
Lloyd.
Sylvia, on her way home, heard a voice calling;
"Miss Bell! Miss Bell! Oh, Captain Sylvia!"
She looked around and saw Jack Jarvis hastening
after her. He waved his hand as she looked around,
being hatless.
"Miss Bell, there's something I've got to tell
you," said Jack, coming up.
"Me? About the fete?" asked Sylvia.
"What fete? Oh, that! The Greek Fakel I
call it *fake,' not 'fete' ! Not bad, is it ? I'd be willing
to bet my dukedom that it'll be a fake, all right!
Takes training and experience of the stage to get a
whole lot of people to do a thing like that well.
Take the one comparatively small matter of walking
well on the stage; why it simply can't be done by
amateurs! Dancing may go all right; that's dead
easy comparatively, but walking, standing around,
all that sort of thing; messy, by amateurs! Do you
suppose these fellows and girls here will walk like
Greeks?" Jack Jarvis waxed eloquent, and exhib-
ited strong feeling.
"I've got to own up, Mr. Jarvis," said Sylvia,
humbly, but dropping her lashes in the hope of
veiling the laughter which she knew was in her eyes,
"there's no use in my pretending! I never saw
Greeks walking in all my life! I've seen them
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"Love Doth to Her Eyes Repair" 151
in Kandy Kitchens — spelled with a K, like 'Kal-
ends' — but they were behind the counter, I've
seen casts of the Parthenon frieze, but it doesn't give
me much idea of how those people walked. So per-
haps our audience won't be any wiser."
"You're a great jollier!" said Jack Jarvis, ad-
miringly. "You're always on. I never met a
girl any more thoroughly on than you arel And
what 1 like about you — one of the things; there's
no end of 'em! — is that you won't be on at all unless
you like the subject. Say, I do wish you'd come
down this winter to New York and let Peggy and
me trot you out. 1 do wish iti"
"I'm grateful for my share of that wish; I don't
know how your sister and New York would feel about
it," laughed Sylvia. "You said you wanted to
tell me something?"
"So I did," said Jack, who, after all, in spite of
his metropolitan existence, was only a boy of twenty-
one, and an honest, quite simple boy at that. "I've
got quite a lot of money coming to me. Seems a
beastly thing to say, but I wanted you to know."
"I did know it," said Sylvia. "It's a fine thing
to have, if a person is able to get its value out of it."
"There you arel" cried Jack, admiringly. "I'm
not. I've been over, over to England and on the
Continent. They sent me over with a tutor when
I was sixteen; I stayed two years, I wouldn't
go to college. I don't care what they tell you about
college frats and friendships and stuff, I can find all
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15* "tVho Is Sylvia?"
the friends I want, and frats — rot I When a fellow
has it to spend he can get into clubs enough, and
college is all tommyrot when you're not going in
for study. Outside that, clubs'll do the trick, and
save those four years. And I didn't care a whoop
about the galleries, nor lots I saw on the other side.
I liked some things, of course; they knew how to
build, those old chaps; I'm quite nutty over Gothic
cathedrals — for me, that is I What I was over for
was to have been over, see? Get the polish and
et cetera! Notice it on me? Well, what am I to
do? I've got all I want to spend, and more than
is good for me. I don't want to take my capital,
and influential name, and go into business to make
more ! Low-down trick. Let the other fellow
have a whack at it, I say! I wouldn't mind going
in for some decent thing, but what I do is to enjoy
myself. I like golf, and sort of harmless things,
I guess, but if I had someone to steer me I'd sort
of like jacking up poor beggars, or orphans, or
anything."
He paused and looked anxiously at Sylvia, who
found herself smiling at him with genuine Hking
for this artless autobiography, even while she was
wondering why it was recited to her. ,
"Why don't you ask Ruth Hapgood to advise
you? She's the girl with the big heart, and the
sane brain to set you on your way. She's a lot
more than the pretty little, charming little thing
you see at first," said Sylvia.
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"Love Doth, to Her Eyes Repair" 153
Jack Jarvis almost groaned.
"Say, Miss Bell, what makes you ring in Ruth
Hapgood all the time?" he asked, despairingly.
"Honest to goodness, it gives me the willies! I
like to see girls stick up for each other, be pals and
stand pat, and all that, but you know when you're
talking to a girl about something well, don't you
see?" Jack said, yielding finally to the despair.
Sylvia could not ignore his cry for mercy.
"But I was trying to think of the best way for
you to find yourself, and Ruth Well, I won't,
then!" she hastily interrupted herself, seeing Jack's
protesting gesture. "Was this what you wanted
to say? I don't quite see "
"You will see when I've told you what I wanted
to tell you. No; it wasn't about myself, or at
least that part of myself. I wanted you to know
that first, so when I told you what I was going to
tell you, you'd be wise to the sort of fellow I am,
so you'd know better how to regard me," said
poor Jack, floundering. "What I had to tell you —
to own up to — ^to confess "
He stopped short.
"Yes," said Sylvia, impatiently, "those all mean
about the same. You sound like 'Soule's English
Synonyms.*"
"Gee, how can you guy me!" cried Jack, so
sincerely that Sylvia was ashamed.
"Indeed I won't guy you! I never can help ■
seeing things like that, but you are nice, and I
3.n.iiffid by Google
<
154 "^Ao ^J Sylvia?"
do think so," Sylvia said, more kindly than dis-
creetly.
"Oh, say!" gasped Jack, fervently. "You —
you — Sylvia! What I had to tell you is that I know
about your mule. There!"
"You know — about — my — mule!" exclaimed Syl-
via, slowly. "My mule? What mule? I'm not ac-
quainted with a single mule. I haven't so much as
a horse, or a Ford. Only an Irish terrier!"
"Oh, say!" gasped poor Jack again. "It isn't a
mule! I got mixed up with those bedroom things;
all toes, no heels. It's a pump."
"Oh, my pump! My dancing pump!" cried
Sylvia, enliglitened, and in spite of her effort to
keep sober, going off into a gale of laughter over her
mistake. "What do you know about it? Find it?"
"No. I couldn't find it, because I stole it. I
have it. I thought I had to own up," said Jack.
"You certainly had to!" said Sylvia, severely.
"What a perfectly foolish thing to do! What good
could a white silk dancing pump, my size, do you?
Please return it. I've another pair now, of course,
but please return that pump."
"I'd rather buy another pair," urged Jack. "You
wouldn't ask what good it did me if I stood any
chance with you. You'd see ! Isn't there any hope
for me, Sylvia?"
"It certainly doesn't sound hopeful, but you may
come around in time, said Sylvia, really angry,
"I don't know much about mental trouble but, to
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"Love Doth to Her Eyes Repair" 155
keep a pump, a silly silk pump — my goodness!
Such feeble feeble-mindedness ! Of course you mayn't
buy another pair, and of course you must re-
turn it I Do you suppose I want one of my shoes
wandering off by itself in your possession? Lloyd
said that night " Sylvia caught herself up, but
Jack pounced on her.
"So Lloyd Hapgood was on!" he cried. "It's
always that sticking-around Lloyd Hapgood I I'd
like to take him out and show him some little dodges
I learned to do when I was abroad. I'd whip him
well! Oh, Sylvia, let me keep the pump, and you
join it. I'll give you everything you ever could
want! I'll, I'll I never saw your match, a patch
on you I Sylvia, you did say you thought I was
nice I"
"But I won't join any pump I" cried Sylvia.
"Bring that shoe back, Jack Jarvis, as soon as you
can get it. And be sensible, please. You are nice,
but it isn't nice to want to beat up Lloyd, whom
I've known this ever so long, and who is my good
old chum. And it's still less nice to steal my shoe
and pretend you're interested in it. Now, only
think: A shoe I A mere white silk pump. Such
lunacy 1 I do loathe nonsense I Brace up. Jack.
Jarvis, and then we'll be friends. As it is you're
an object of charity, and that's not pleasant for
you or me. You know I never in all my life have
stood for sentimental philandering, so don't you try
itl Nice boy, Jack Jarvis, but go home and i^ one!"
3.n.iiffid by Google
156 "IVko Is Sylvia?"
"You talk like a kid!" said Jack, with wrath
and considerable justice. "I'm past twenty-one.
Do you suppose a fellow can fall in love with a girl
and — and — stand everything ? Do you suppose,
Sylvia Bell, that nothing means anything F"
"I don't know one least thing about it, Jack
Jarvis, and I'm not supposing! And if I talk Uke
a kid, I suppose it's because I still am a kid, or at
least I hope so. I'm five feet seven inches, and
eighteen years old, but that's all of me that's grown
up, and I'm clinging with both hands to my youthful
teens. Run along home, and — and I don't mean
to be nasty, Jack, and I'm sorry if you're sorry, for
I do like you, especially this afternoon when I've
got better acquainted with you. You'll be all
right soon. Brace up! It's just as you said: you
need something to occupy your mind. Sorry, Jackl
I don't think it's my fault."
"No, it isn't," Jack admitted, dolefully. "You've
never shown the least interest in me. But I've
never known a girl like you, and you couldn't
expect me not to go head over heels dippy over
you. I'd like to show you to New York. Say, don't
let this make any diiFerence. I'll bring back the
pump, and you come on down anyway; Peggy'U
be as dippy over you as I am, in her way, and we'd
give you the time of your life. And maybe, if you
stopped being a kid, why, who knows? You'll stop
sometime; you've got to grow up, you know."
Jack Jarvis wrung Sylvia's hand and turned
3.n.iiffid by Google
"Love Doth to Her Eyes Repair" 157
sadly away. She continued down the beach to which
she and Jack had walked to talk without inter-
ruptions.
"It does seem to me," thought Sylvia, walking
so slowly that O'Malley sat down to let her get a
start to allow him a chance to run, "that Jack
Jarvis is quite a nice boy. The boys are nice,
honest and earnest, and nice. Lloyd and Gerald,
and now this one, all with a family resemblance,
although they aren't one bit alike. I like them
all three, and in the same way — of course not Jack
hke the two I've known. And it seems to me that
Jack, for all he is sitly, is nearer right than I am, and
sees what I can't see. Which is curious, too, for
I've read a hundred books for his one! Sylvia, my
dear, if you were entirely truthful with yourself,
you would admit that it isn't book lamin' that
teaches ! "
Which admission made to her own satisfaction,
Sylvia delighted O'Malley by breaking into a run
and racing him to Gabriel Gaby's shack.
" I brought my harmonica, Gabriel, " Sylvia
cried. "I'm going to sit here with you one hour
by my wrist watch, which will barely get me home
in time to get ready for dinner. I'm going to play
to you, my Retired Seaman, till you think that the
Lorelei has come up to sit on the end of this log
beside you. It will be wonderful music to celebrate
an event that marks my coming of age! To-day,
Gabriel Gaby, I was promoted. I have assumed
3.n.iiffid by Google
158 "Who Is Sylvia?"
my toga virilis, or whatever is the girls' equivalent
to that garment."
"Leetle mite touched by the sun, hey, Sylvie?"
hinted Gabriel Gaby, significantly indicating his
brow with his stubby forefinger. "T has been
warm. Maybe you know what you're alludin' to,
Sylvie, but I'll be everlastingly keel-hauled 'f I
do I"
Sylvia pulled her old harmonica out of her pocket,
wiped it with her handkerchief, and blew a few
notes from it as she had done, to the unbounded
joy of Gabriel Gaby, when she was growing up and
he had been her master in this plebeian art.
"I'm talking about what makes the world go
'round 1" Sylvia said, deferring her performance to
reply.
"They say it's love, but I notice my world kinder
spins along, an' love hain't bothered me this long
time," said Gabriel Gaby.
"Oh, Gabriel, how we do agree I" sighed Sylvia,
and straightway felt to playing.
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER XI
"To Help Him of His Blindness "
"VTR. BELL was called to the city by the neces-
■''"'■ sities of his work the following morning, and
Sylvia had a holiday.
She began it by getting up at an unlikely hour
for a solitary sail, solitary except for O'Malley.
However fond she was of her friends, Sylvia found
little joy to compare with one of these early voyages
in the swift little Walloping Windoto Blind, without
any other human being to talk and be calked to, to
make her conscious of another mind that might be
affected differently from her own.
She settled down beside the tiller, stretched out
with her feet braced against the centreboard casing,
her disreputable hat pulled down over her eyes, her
skirt comfortably hitched up across her knees, the
sheet in her hand ready to be played out and hauled
in as the fitful but strong breeze might demand
it handled.
"Pretty nice, Charles O'Malley, my beloved,"
Sylvia su^ested. "The wind is southwest." She
thrust a forefinger into her mouth till it was warm and
moist, and held it up to test the wind's direc-
3.n.iiffid by Google
l6o "Who Is Sylvia?"
tion; it blew, of course, against the side that cooled
first.
"Sou'west by sou', dog of the world." Sylvia
announced the result to O'Malley, who politely
wagged his tail in assent, but evinced no absorbing
interest in the wind's direction. "That's a puffy
wind, so you see I don't make fast the sheet, but
hold it ready to play and preserve us alive, my Irish
Dragoon. O'Malley, it's not half bad when we can
get off by ourselves like this, is it? A box of fudge
and you upon the bow — Omar Khayyam didn't get
that quite right, did he?"
O'Malley, who had gone forward to his particular
post beside the mast, could . no longer sit quietly
at the bow while Sylvia propounded questions to
him and began to paraphrase Omar's Rubaiyat for
him. He came aft whining and twisting himself,
till, after Sylvia had petted him and explained that
her conversation needed no replies, he went back
to the bow and braced himself beside the mast
again. Sylvia stood over across on a long tack,
the wind on the quarter, sail tight hauled, then she
made many short tacks and, by means of them,
beat as far in the other direction, till she had covered
seven miles, and it was time to come in.
" My fudge has not spoiled my appetite, doggums,"
observed Sylvia. "We are taught a great deal
that we have to unlearn. You weren't! All the
education I gave you was practical, and there's
where you score over your teachers, who are brought
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"To Help Him of His Blindness" i6l'
up in superstition and not ignorance. Fudge be-
fore breakfast does not spoil my appetite, and
Casabianca always said it would. I've got to go
in and connect with rolls and coffee, and I hope a
chop and raspberries. Norah is coming back to-
night with her Roseleen; did you know that?
Roseleen is fresh from Ireland, my dear. You're
one of the rare Irishmen, bom in this country,
who haven't the least interest in the home of their
fathers; you are wholly devoted to your native
land. So you don't care about that, do you ? No-
rah gives you tidbits, O'Malley; she says it's for
your name, which was her mother's maiden name,
so you should be interested in her return, though."
Once more O'Malley, catching reproach in Syl-
via's voice, came aft, and this time he sat down to
stay beside her, leaning heavily and inconveniently
against her knee.
Gabriel Gaby was waiting to help Sylvia haul
the tender of The Walloping Widow Blind up on
the beach, and, also, to ask her a favour.
"Seen you go out, Sylvie, an' knew your father'd
gone to Boston, an' sort o' made out you'd not
be in the laboratory this momin'," he greeted
her. "Would you feel like patchin' me or have
you another fish on your hook?"
Sylvia made it her business to mend her old
friend's clothes. He had no one to do these ser-
vices for him, and he was sixty-six years old. Sylvia
was truly fond of the funny little ex-sailor, and
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i62 "Who Is Sylvia?"
took it upon herself to give him what comfort it
lay in her power to give. He had taught her to
sail and to row; had taken her fishing countless
times when she was a child; had amused her with
his philosophy as she grew older, and had enter-
tained her with his stories and queer expressions all
her life. Quietly Sylvia returned to him all that
she had received, with interest.
"No, I have no particular fish on my hook, only
a little one which I can throw, off into the water,"
she said. " I'll be down, Gabriel, with my sewingkit."
"Pack up your thimble in your old kit bag,"
Gabriel Gaby hummed the words to the familiar
air. "You're a good little craft, Sylvie, an' you
sail well on any tack."
"I'll be down, Gabriel; about ten or so," Sylvia
called back, acknowledging his compliment with
a wave of her hand, running off toward the dune
path as fast as she could.
At ten minutes after ten Sylvia, in a becoming
pale blue chambray, with a deep fichu of dotted
Swiss and deep cuffs to match, bareheaded and
trim, came speeding down the steep path from the
dune, O'Malley after her, toward Gabriel Gaby, on
the lookout for her.
"What's the patch to go on this time?" Sylvia
asked, dropping down on the log, and getting out
her sewing tools without loss of time, waiting to
decide on the colour of her thread when she knew
what she was to mend.
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"To Help Him of His Blindness" 163
"It's on the elber of my short coat," said Gabriel
Gaby. "Wore clean through. An' you know,
Sylvie, I ain't a scold, so it can't be from sharp
elbers."
"No. More likely from wear," assented Sylvia.
"You know that you've worn that coat since I
was nine; I remember you had it when I had my
ninth birthday, and even amputated elbows would
wear out a coat, nibbing on one spot for nine years!"
She threaded her needle with black silk, made a
knot in the end, and laid the coat over her knee to
adjust neatly the piece of cloth which Gabriel Gaby,
frugal and methodical, had kept for all the time of
the coat's existence to mend it when mending became
necessary.
"Where's Lloyd Hapgood, Sylvie?" asked Ga-
briel, suddenly, as Sylvia bent frowningly over her
work.
"Where?" cried Sylvia, quickly straightening
herself. "Oh, you said: Where is Lloyd Hapgood;
I thought you said: There. Why, he's all about,
Gabriel; nowhere in particular; just as he always is."
"You ain't seein' him so much," said Gabriel.
"I'm not? Yes, I think I am; I don't know,"
said Sylvia, honestly. "He's always to be seen.
Perhaps he hasn't been visible so often lately; I
hadn't thought about it."
"Better think about it, Sylvie," advised Gabriel
Gaby. "There's a sight of young chaps can swing
a cane more nobby, an' cut a wider swathe with,
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l64 "Who Is Sylvia?"
or without that cane, mebbe, than Lloyd kin, but
when it comes to an anchor that'll hold, Lloyd's
it."
"Right you are, Gabriel," Sylvia heartily en-
dorsed him. "But it wouldn't occur to me to
label him. Lloyd is Why, he's Lloyd I Just that,
and just there I You take him for granted much
as you do the lower light out yonder."
"I suppose a girl of eighteen hain't lived long
enough, nor seen enough of what kind o' things
people can turn themselves into, to know the full
valyer of what you've just said, Sylvie, It's all
true, every word, an' just what it stands fer you
can't begin to realize," said Gabriel Gaby, im-
pressively.
"I suppose that may be, but I realize a little
bit," said Sylvia with a warm smile for Gabriel's
praise of Lloyd. "If I don't see much of him
just now, still I see him a good deal, and I'll never
be any less glad to see him. You nice Gabriel
Gaby, to defend him, if he needed defence. But
he doesn't!"
"Better not let any one supersede Lloyd with
you, Sylvie; cut him out, in plain language. Know
what Shakespeare said? 'Tlie friends thou hast,
an' their adoption tried, grapple 'em to thy soul
with hooks of steel'. 'Hamlet'; I see that acted once
by Edwin Booth, when I wasn't much more'n a
boy, an' I read it after. Good advice, too, though
it was a queer kind of duffer, called Polly-onius,
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"To Help Him oj His Blindness" 165
gave it. He got stabbed, stuck like a pin-cushion
shortly after, but he had sense in what he told
his son." Gabriel Gaby endorsed Shakespeare with
a solemn shake of his head.
"Gabriel, dear, what has set you off?" cried
Sylvia. "Lloyd is Lloyd; haven't I said so? And
that covers it! There's nothing wrong between us.
Gabriel, who is that girl I see down the beach?
I don't know her,"
"That," said Gabriel Gaby, "is Allimetta, Alli-
metta Briggs."
"Never!" cried Sylvia. "Oh, Gabriel, do you
know her? And can you get her here without letting
her know I wanted her?"
" Why, I don't just see how. Nor do I know what
you want o' her; she's a kind o' a goin'-along crea-
ture," said Gabriel Gaby, frowning perplexedly at
Sylvia.
"That's what I want of her. To persuade her to
go along," laughed Sylvia. "She is breaking a de-
voted heart, and I promised, if ever I met her, to urge
her to be merciful. "
"Enos Coffin I" exclaimed Gabriel, at once under-
standing. "He's no better'n what she is, Sylvie;
what's the odds? They won't be happy, anjTvay.
Wasn't I married, an' am I such a clam as Enos?
An' I assure you Mrs. Gaby wa'n't like Allimetta."
"She was too energetic, I understood from what
you told me. Maybe two people who are rather
limp may be more simpatica, Gabriel. Anyway,
3.n.iiffid by Google
l66 "JFho Is Sylvia?"
they'll think they're happy and that's all that
matters," said philosophic Sylvia. "Can you get
her?"
"She's tumin' this way now. She was comin* to
see if I'd sail her an' some friends o' hers over to
Baytide, supposin' she could get a boat. I guess
she's set out for here, but Allimetta wouldn't sail
straight, free o' the wind, 'f she could tack; that's
Allimetta's build," said Gabriel.
Sylvia sewed in silence, hemming down her neat
patch on the sleeve of Gabriel's coat, and watching
Allimetta Briggs's slow approach.
When she was near Sylvia's task was done; she
held up the coat for Gabriel Gaby to admire.
"Fit for a retired seaman?" Sylvia asked,
"Fit for a retired admiral of the fleet, Captain
Sylvie!" returned Gabriel. "You are what I'd
call a soarin' sewerl An' to think Cassandra Bill-
ings was worried green not so awful long ago, fearin*
you'd grow up so's t' not be able to thread a needle,
hardly!"
Allimetta Bri^s by this time was within speak-
ing distance. She was a lackadaisical-looking
girl, with a kind of helpless prettiness about her
common little thin face, and she was wonderfully
dressed in a cotton pongee-like material embroidered
in many colours in "lazy-daisy stitch," with a
deep collar of imitation lace of an emphatic pattern,
surmounted by a large satin hat, with immense
flat flowers of three colours applied along the brim.
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"To Help Him of His Blindness" 167
"Make you acquainted with Miss Sylvia Bell,
Allimetta; Miss Briggs, Miss Bell." Gabriel Gaby
made the presentation, rising and putting his heels
together in the first position, evidently feeling that
some formal attitude was demanded of him.
"Miss Bell of the Bell mansion?" asked AUimetta,
elegantly. "Delighted to see you. I've heard tell a
lot of you, how you sail, an' everything."
"And I've heard of youl" cried Sylvia, with im-
mense enthusiasm, throwing warmth into a voice
that always charmed with its quality, at once ring-
ing and soft. " I know someone who thinks there's
no one in all the world comparable to Miss Allimetta
Briggs!"
It is a foregone conclusion that a correct pro-
nunciation and English construction, uttered in a
cultivated voice, will have one of two effects upon
people of Alllmetta's sort. Either it will stir them
to envious wrath, resistance to superiority, or it
will impress them and tend to make them ready
to follow where that superior leads. Fortunately
for Sylvia's success, Allimetta was of the latter
sort. Instantly she recognized that Sylvia was greet-
ing her in a way that she could never hope to attain,
and she regarded her admiringly.
"I expect it's a gentleman friend of mine," she
said, simpering.
"Yes, Mr. Coffin," cried Sylvia. "Long ago,
when I was fifteen, and my chum here, O'Malley,
the terrier, was quite young, the dog was badly cut
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(
i68 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
and Mr. Cofl^ took him — me, too! — home in his
cart. So I've never forgotten that I owe Mr.
G>ffin a debt of gratitude which I cannot, or have
not had a chance so far, to repay."
"He told me about that," said Allimetta. "He
and I was asked once to look on at a hop to the
hotel, an' you was dancin'; then he tole me. Him
an' me kep' steady comp'ny at that time."
"Oh, yes, I knowl" Sylvia's sympathy was
profound. "And now you are separated I It is
very sad. Mr. Coffin had an errand at my father's
house lately and he told me that you were not
going to be married. He showed me the perfectly
wonderful ring that he bought for your engagement.
It is so painfully sad to be separated! Miss Bri^s,
why, oh, why won't you be kind to poor, heart-
broken Mr. Coffin?"
"Honest? Do you think I'd oughter make
up?" cried Allimetta. "Well, if a young lady like
you says he's the thing — I don't care! I don't
mind! To be sure I had another plan. There was
a butcher; him and me rode out in the delivery
truck Sundays; it was kinder nice. But I don't
know — I don't care if I do many Enos! But how'd
I fix it up ? A perfect lady don't never tip a feller
off she's ready, does she?"
"Dear me, no; she doesn'tl" cried Sylvia, grate-
ful to herself for smothering a laugh. "I'll see
that Mr. Coffin understands. Will you be ready
if he comes to-morrow, or the next evening ? Ready
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"To Help Him of His Blindness" 169
for him to put that marvellous ring back on your
finger?"
AUimetta hung her head in a blushing attitude,
although she did not blush.
"I'll say it's some ring!" she admitted. "Yes,
Miss Bell, you can send him, if you want to."
"And now I must go home," said Sylvia, throwing
upon the crimson and suffering Gabriel Gaby a
look that nearly upset his heroic efforts to hold
back laughter. "So glad you happened along,
Miss Briggs! It's a great thing to feel that one
has made love less blind."
"Say, ain't she elegant?" cried AUimetta, as
Sylvia started away, and almost at once broke into
a run which Gabriel Gaby correctly interpreted as
flight to get where she could laugh her fill. "T
anybody was to ask me what I called a perfect
lady I'd stick my finger — all my finger's far's that
goesl — right out at Miss Sylvia Bell."
Ruth sat on the piazza when Sylvia reached her
home, and beside her on a chair was a package,
opened, containing a box, and in that box was
Sylvia's lost white silk pump> now haloed with
Romance.
"Oh, Ruthl" exclaimed Sylvia, stopping short
with such a look of dismay that Ruth, jumping up
to greet her, stepped back, shocked that Sylvia
seemed sorry to see her.
"Anything wrong?" Ruth asked. "Don't you
want me?"
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I70 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"I always want you," said Sylvia, "and you
know it. But — did he give that to you to bring
to me?"
"Is that all?" cried sharp little Ruth, instantly
guessing what was in Sylvia's mind. "No, he did
not. If he had I'd not have opened it! It was
here when I came; Cassie had it undone, and was
holding an indignation meeting over it all by herself.
She admitted me to the meeting, said he ought to be
ashamed of himself, and wondered if they had no
idea in New York of what was nice and respectful,
not to say sensible. Sylvia, evidently you knew
about that pump. Aren't you going to tell your
best friend?"
"I didn't know till yesterday, Ruth. Yes, I did
know then. Lloyd guessed right. But, Ruth, it's
just a boy's sentimentality; it's really nothing.
He'll forget all about it in a minute. It was you he
was attracted to first, and that's what counts. He
probably sort of noticed me because I was new —
they do, you know — and so tall. But he admires
you and I can see he Hkes you." Sylvia spoke
eagerly, selecting her words carefully, not sure
whether there might be in little Ruth some hurt
pride in being passed over for Sylvia, half fearing
that Ruth might have been attracted by Jack
Jarvis.
"It doesn't seem one bit so, but you never can
tell," thought Sylvia, anxiously,
Ruth looked at Sylvia with an inscrutable ex-
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"To Help Him of His Blindness" 171
pression, that she tried to make sober. "Sylvia,
he has discarded me completely and you know it,
so why try to gloss it over? I love you well enough
not to grudge you anything; I don't blame him one
bit for liking you better And, if you do learn to
care for him, think what you can do as the mistress
of all that wealth!" she said, pensively.
"Oh, Ruth, dear Ruth, it isn't more than a pass-
ing fancy. Learn to care for him? He's a nice
boy; I'd learn to love him if you loved him and
he loved you, but not in the way you mean," cried
Sylvia, eagerly. "And it's silly for you to think
he really likes me, Ruth; all that he longs for is to
show me New York. He said so over and over."
" Doesn't that mean everything? Doesn't he
want to give you the best he knows, and isn't New
York the best thing in the world to him?" de-
manded Ruth, sadly. But she could not keep it
up. With a scream of laughter she threw herself
on Sylvia and hugged her, laughing till she sobbed.
"Oh, Sylvia, I never dreamed you could be so
foolish, so funny," she gasped. "You were afraid
I cared and you've tiptoed around my dying bed!
Dying of a broken heart! Not your small Ruth!
Sylvia, Sylvia, it is funny! Why, you dear goose,
you're welcome to all the Jack Jarvises there are
from the Battery to the Bronx, or you would be if
I didn't wane you to do something worlds nicer
than to marry him! Jarvis wealth, Jarvis power^
Jarvis social position" — Ruth waved her hands.
3.n.iiffid by Google
172 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"Not a bit do I care, Sylvia, and it's been the
funniest thing in ages I Lloyd and I knew that
night Jackie had purloined your pump. What else
could have happened to it? It made Lloyd mad, but
I loved it. Do you know, Sylvia, clever as you
are and with your dear old regal head cratmned with
booklore, I often see quicker and farther, and un-
derstand some things better than you doF"
"I believe that is true, Ruthie," admitted Sylvia.
"I think in some ways, and for eighteen years old,
I'm quite stupid and crude."
"Well, I wouldn't use those adjectives, but you
do go your way something like Una. I never read
Spenser, but we got that in literature lectures.
She had other things to think of, wasn't interested
in young men," said Ruth, finding herself uncertain
of her ground.
"That's not it!" cried Sylvia. "I'm not one bit
like Una, unless it was that she had a lion chum
and I have an Irish terrier. Then you don't mind,
not the least bit, that Jack Jarvis switched over and
fancied that he wanted my pump, not yours? Not
the least bit, small Ruthie?"
For answer Ruth danced Sylvia down the length
of the piazza, and Sylvia, infected at last by Ruth's
glee over the whole episode, danced her back again,
almost spinning the little maid off her feet.
After which, half breathless, they stopped and
hugged each other, laughing like the children that
they had been such a little while before.
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"To Help Him of His Blindness" 173
Then Sylvia pulled herself together, but instantly
began to laugh again.
"Oh, Ruthie, do you remember in 'An Old-Fash-
ioned Girl' that it says: 'Polly held her close' — that's
Fanny Shaw, you know! — 'saying in that tender
voice of hers : "I didn't mean to let a lover part this
pair of friends, if I couM help it?"' When I was
about ten I thought that was the most glorious,
touching speech, perfectly scrumptious; didn't you?
I could almost recite every word of that book, and
of 'Little Women.' And do you know, that's been
ringing in my ears these past weeks, and I've been
feeling rather fine and lovely, acting Polly toward
you! Isn't that too delicious? I nearly quoted
it to Jack Jarvis, altering the sentence to suit,
of course, when I remembered in time that it
wouldn't do to hint to him you were in love with
him ! "
"Well, rather not!" cried Ruth. "Sylvia, doesn't
that prove you're only a little girl? It didn't mean
one thing to you, but acting out a story."
"That's true," said Sylvia, despondently, as if
oppressed by her deficiency. Then she cheered up.
"But, Ruth, what could it mean when it didn't
mean anything?" she cried, and they both began to
dance and to laugh all over again with the joy of
this absurdity.
"I've got to go, Captain Sylvia, my darling,'*
said Ruth, who seemed happy over Sylvia's frus-
trated romance, for some reason.
3.n.iiffid by Google
174 "^Ao t^ SylviaV
"I'm going up to straighten my hair; it's shaken
almost down with our romping."
The girls ran up to Sylvia's room where Ruth made
herself tidy for her walk back to Mrs. Leveritt's.
Sylvia and she halted a moment at the top of
the steps before Ruth went down them.
"I'll have Norah's young Roseleen on my hands
to-night, by the last train," said Sylvia. "I don't
suppose she'll be on my hands, but Norah is to
bring her here to stay till we can decide what's
to be done with her. And, Ruthie, please tell
Lloyd I've got to go over to North Paxton to find
that Enos Coffin to-morrow, and ask him if he'd
like the honour of driving me over in Gwendolen ?"
"I can answer for that, and for that matter, so
can you I I'll tell him," said Ruth, at last departing.
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER XII
"And Being Helped — "
lylSS SYLVIA BELL: At Home?" Mr. Bell
■^'* remarked, inquiringly, putting out his hand
to draw nearer to his the chair that Sylvia was
preparing to use on the piazza after tea.
"Yes, Father. Miss Bell is at home this evening,
but not in the sense of receiving. Why, yes, she
is, too," Sylvia added, discovering that this was
precisely what she was doing.
"Norah is coming back to-night. She will bring
her sister, just landed. Roseleen is fifteen, and I
don't know what Norah will do with her. I thought
I ought to be here when, they come to set the girl
at ease, make Norah comfortable in her mind, be-
sides. I told Cassie that Norah might keep Rose-
leen with her here till we could find out where she
would fit in the new land. Cassie is really kind, but
she does detest innovations! She agreed with me
that we ought to help Norah with the youngster, but
she would be glad to help her at longer range, if
there were a way to it."
Mr. Bell looked with great pride at his girl, though
Sylvia, her eyes fastened on the brilliant west, did
3.n.iiffid by Google
176 "ffho Is Sylvia?"
not see it. Only three years ago she had been a
"youngster" of fifteen herself, and one that it seemed
impossible ever to get interested in domestic affairs,
one whose utter contempt for a needle tried conscien-
tious Cassandra's soul, vainly struggling to train the
girl into fitness for womanhood. And now! Not
merely skilful with the once-despised needle, compe-
tent to do much delicious cooking, a gracious young
head of her father's house, but taking responsibility
for the welfare of this little immigrant, betraying the
sweet womanliness whose first divine instinct is to
protect and help.
"Beautifully right, Sylvia!" her father approved
her. "Norah is a good, faithful girl, and if Provi-
dence had made Sylvia Roseleen, and Roseleen
Sylvia, I should be glad, in my grave, that Sylvia
was fallen among friends in a strange land."
"Father, you nice thing!" cried Sylvia, swinging
around to face him. "You understand so much that
is quite different from lab. things! That's precisely
it! I always wonder that people don't see it. I
was bom with all sorts of advantages back of me,
but I might not have been, and I didn't give them to
myself. Doesn't it seem obvious that advantages
are a debt to be paid to any one coming along with a
lean bank account, in the coin in which you are
rich ? "
"I would say, dear, that the greatest advantage of
all was to be bom with a soul capable of recognizing
that stupendous tmth and to have been taught it,"
3.n.iiffid by Google
"Jnd Being Helped—" 177
said Mr. Bell. "You are a happy child, tall little
daughter! "
"Mercy, yes. Father!" cried Sylvia. "I'm so
happy that I try to be afraid; everybody says that
it's dangerous to be too happy! But I can't manage
it. And it's ungrateful not to get every least drop
of it, don't you think? So I go on from day to day
getting a little happier, like the Aged Man a-sitting
on the gate, only he was 'thinking of a way to get a
little fatter'! And come to think of it, it wasn't the
Aged Man at all, but the other man telling us about
him. "
"Sylvia, I think it's because you are mildly insane
that you are safe to enjoy your happiness to the full!
The fates and furies probably go around the feeble-
minded without molesting them. What can you be
talking about? What Aged Man, and who told you
about him? Sounds like a quotation," cried Mr.
Bell.
"Oh, you poor, poor little Clement Belli What a
shame! Did they 'buse him when he was little and
couldn't 'buse back! Didn't you have 'Through the
Looking Glass' when you were a little chap ? In a
land teeming with societies of all sorts of initials to
prevent all sorts of cruelties? Why didn't Aunt
Emily get you 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'
instead of the kilts she told me she made you?"
Sylvia cried with mock passionate pity.
"Of course I had itl Both the 'Alice' books,
but I didn't recognize your allusion," Mr. Bell
3.n.iiffid by Google
178 "fTho Is Sylvia?"
reassured her. "How could I know what I do about
changes in the laboratory specimens if I hadn't read
'Alice'?"
"Qualified I" cried Sylvia, gleefully. "You've
qualified as an Alician. That was a lovely proof of it.
Father, do you see what a sunset we're having out
here, all by ourselves, with nobody else to get one
tiny fadedest-edge tint of it?"
"I do," said Mr. Bell. "And that without the
least desire to share it. Sylvia, I was remembering
how your mother and I sat just here and watched the
sunsets in the half summer and one whole one that
she was here with me. We were married early in
July. We came to take possession of this house in
August. A year from the following June, when you .
were a week old, you know, she left me. I did not
expect to be happy again; the most I hoped for was
to learn to bear a loss so great. You are the miracle-
worker, dear; I am happy, profoundly happy with
you."
"Yes, I think that is true, Father-mine," said
Sylvia, softly. "When people tell me I'm a lucky
girl and tell me why I am, that I'm pretty, or tall, or
can make friends, or sail, or play the piano, or sew,
I smile inside myself and think they don't know one
thing about it. I am happy, but not for any of those
reasons. Because you are happy, and such a dear
that you let me make you so."
Mr. Bell patted her hand, saying:
"Your mother was a little creature, not two inches
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"And Being Helped — " 179
above five feet tall, but in spite of that, and your
resemblance to me, I see her in you at every turn.
You have her nature, and you curiously reproduce her
small gestures, little mannerisms. It is wonderful
to me, when she left you, a meaningless little roll of
flannel, and you have never known her. I am
thankful that she endowed you with so much of
herself before she went away. She was constantly
occupied with my happiness. It is like her to have
gjven me the best daughter a man could have, with
a great deal ofher sweet selfin her, to make me happy
in her stead."
" Father, you make me feel as if I were part of that
sunset, shining with gloryl" Sylvia laughed in order
not to cry, but there was a catch in her voice. "You
know it was because I wanted to be a wee bit of good
to you that I began to learn to do things: cook, sew,
and ptay for you, all that, I suppose I'd have been
no more good than a floating piece of seaweed if I
hadn't wanted to be your comrade Sylvia. And I
see Norah and a girl with her, so there's the end of
our confab till the stars are out. The other girl —
young Roseleen — is taller than Norah I"
Sylvia was as much interested in the coming of this
fifteen-year-old maid as if she had been a guest at
one of the hotels, instead of Norah's sister, Roseleen
Leary, the immigrant. But Sylvia managed to be
interested in everything and everybody, with a vi-
tahty in her interest that was, in many of the cases,
amazing to her friends. Sally Meade had expressed
3.n.iiffid by Google
i8o "Who Is Sylvia?"
this wonder in this connection, the coming of Norah's
sister, but Sylvia had silenced her, without lessening
the wonder, by saying:
"Roseleen is just a girl, and exceedingly pretty,
Norah says, and Norah is a nice girl. Why should
I be interested in Maida Clayton, because she lives
at High Tide, and not in Roseleen, because she
doesn't yet live anywhere ? Of course I'm interested
in a pretty, nice young girll"
"It will end in short hair, spectacles, and a Social
Settlement," groaned Sally, with pretended horror,
but she knew that it never would, and that Sylvia's
kindness was far and away from the scientific, dry
bones of modem philanthropy.
"This is your Roseleen, isn't it, Norah?" said
Sylvia, going to the head of the steps and intercepting
Norah as she turned toward the side door.
"Roseleen, I hope you're not too tired from sailing
and sailing? I never get tired of it myself."
"No, miss. I'm well, thank you, miss," said
Roseleen, her head tipped to one side, her lids cover-
ing her shy eyes.
She was as pretty as Norah had called her; Sylvia
thought that she might easily be "the prettiest girl
in County Cork," unless Cork were richer in beauty
than most counties, anywhere. Roseleen's tinting
was delicacy itself, yet it managed to have warmth^
not the coldness of extreme delicacy. Her eyes were
soft, pensive, yet half laughing, hazel brown in
colour; her dark hair grew in ripples around her brow.
3.n.iiffid by Google
"Jnd Being Helped — " i8l
making "the widow's peak" in the middle of her
forehead which added greatly to its charm.
"You must be perfectly happy over here," Sylvia
warned the girl. "We'll ship you away, perhaps to
Austraha, if you aren't."
"Yes, miss," said Roseleen, but she smiled, a tiny
smile.
"I'll just step in an' leave me bag, if you please,
Miss Sylvia, then I'll take Roseleen to the clean,
decent place I found for her, down in the village.
I'll not be long, miss, keepin' the house open."
" Norah, this is a clean, decent place for Roseleen, "
laughed Sylvia. "I've known it all my life and it's
perfectly clean, and I think Roseleen would rather be
with you. Won't you keep her with you till you de-
cide what she's to do with her little self? She can
share your room, and not bother any one a bit more
than would a little green mouse in the wall. Do you
have green mice in Ireland, Roseleen?"
"No, miss," said Roseleen, but the look that she
gave Sylvia was eloquent enough to make up for the
deficiencies of her tongue.
Norah cried out joyfully: "Oh, Miss Sylvia, sure
it's not the Irish alone that has kind hearts, though
often they do be thmkin' it! Could you but know
how frightened this poor child was to be goin' out to
sleep without me in a strange land I But I says to her:
'Roseleen, it's yourself, an' not Norah, you must be
leanin' on, an' the sooner you begin it the sooner
you'll get strong for it.' But if you don't mind my
3.n.iiffid by Google
i82 *'Wko Is Sylvia ?"
Iceepin' her. Miss Sylvia, I'll be thankful to risk her
stayin* weak awhile longer, just till she gets used to
the skies above her, an' the way the voices sound on
this side. Roseleen, have you no word to thank Miss
Sylvia, who's been your good angel from the start
of your comin', an' before I'd sent your passage
money?"
"I'm that thankful, miss, I can't be sayin' it,"
said Roseleen, faintly.
"Never mind saying it, Roseleen. The best thanks
aren't said, but show themselves a little bit at a
time. It isn't the least trouble to have you. Cas-
sandra will fill you up with American instructions
if you're here a few days," Sylvia said.
Norah permitted herself a small twinkle of under-
standing with her youthful mistress.
"Cassandra would have made a fine, competent girl
of me by now, had it been in me. Miss Sylvia, Maybe
Roseleen will not be the stupid one I am," she said.
"Cassandra has a cozy hot supper awaiting you two
girls," said Sylvia, repenting her trifling lapse to
Norah that recognized Cassandra's tendency to train
up everybody in the way they should go. "She's
always kind, though she hates to make a fuss about
it. Then get a long night's sleep, and have Roseleen
rested to get acquainted with Paxton early in the
morning."
"Would there be larks here, miss? In Ireland the
larks do be out early," said Roseleen, unexpectedly.
"Often there are larks here quite late at night,
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"Jnd Being Helped — " 183
Roseleen," Sylvia assured her, as she rejoined her
father.
Immediately after lunch the next day Lloyd
appeared at the Bell gate in Gwendolen. Gwendolen
was plainly just out from a bath; she shone re-
splendent in mudless wheels, dustless top, freshly
polished brass and sides.
Lloyd ran up the steps and called Sylvia, who came
out in a white skin and waist, hatless, and pretended
great surprise at seeing Lloyd.
"Why, Lloyd, how nicet What brought you
here?" she exclaimed.
Lloyd looked at her sharply, then he grinned.
"Come offi Climb down! Dismount, Tink,"
he said. "I'm on. Didn't you tell Ruth to send
me around to bury you, or something like that — take
you to a Coffin?"
"Poor joke! Frightfully poor joke, Lloyd!"
Sylvia frowned at him. "I believe I did ask Ruth
to tell you that I'd let you take me to North Paxton,
if you wanted to almost beyond endurance, but how
could I be sure you'd come?"
" That's a poor joke, if you're talking of poor ones ! "
said Lloyd. "Get your hat, Tink, or come without
it, if you like, but don't leave the Lady Gwendolen
down there eating her heart out — drinking her own
gas — in mad longing to get you in her midst."
" I shall wear a hat," said Sylvia with dignity. " I
shall even wear a new hat, a lovely close-fitting thing
that I made myself, all of shirred silk with tiny
3.n.iiffid by Google
l84 "fflio Is Sylvia?"
buds around the face, in a flat, bewitching encircling
wreath. I'm describing it for you, Lloyd, because
when I appear with it on you are expected to be so
blinded with admiration that you won't be able to
distinguish its detaib,"
"Humphl" gnmted Lloyd. "Mixing me up with
Jarvis, aren't youF I've seen you often enough to
stand up under a small new hatl"
Sylvia turned away with splendid disdain and
sauntered upstairs, taking as much time as possible
in going. But she must have moved more quickly in
her own room, for she was down again and out to
Gwendolen in so short a time as to satisfy even Lloyd's
impatience.
The Lady Gwendolen was "feeling particularly
fit," as Lloyd remarked. Her yellow wheels spun
at a good rate of speed, and Lloyd "gave her more
gas," with much satisfaction in her behaviour.
"I like this car," observed Sylvia, as she had often
done before. "Take it all around, it's the one I'd
rather have. Maybe I shall get one next year. Father
will take lab. easier, so he promises me, after the Ex-
periment — with a capital E — is done, and it wouldn't
be half bad to drive him along the shore, all the way
down to Maine. Yet, on the other hand, I want him
to take me abroad."
"Say, Sylvial" Lloyd's tone was seriously re-
monstrant. "Don't do that! Don't go over yet.
I'll be graduated in two years more, then I'll go.
Wait, and make it a family party."
3.n.iiffid by Google
"And Being Helped^" 185
" By that time you'll have other fish to fry, or else
you'll be eager to make your start in life. And,
besides," Sylvia hastily went on, seeing Lloyd about
to interrupt, and not caring to hear what he might
want to say, "I'm not used to any family but my
one, solitary father, and I don't want to adopt en-
cumbrances, thanks."
"Encumbrances!" echoed Lloyd. "A fat lot I've
ever encumbered you. Tinker Bell! You need me,
and it's pretty near time that you recognized that
little fact."
"I never thought you were conceited," mused
Sylvia in a meditative tone, "but yet I knew you
were subject to human weaknesses, so why not con-
ceit? Still, it is rather a shock. If you sincerely
think that I need you, Lloyd, then how do you
account for your deserting me lately? It would
seem unkind. Not that I'm sure that you have
deserted me; I hadn't noticed it, but Gabriel Gaby
said you hadn't been around with me as usual,"
Sylvia added, hastily.
"Speaking of unkindness," said Lloyd in a general
way and to the passing breeze. "You hadn't noticed
that I hadn't been around f Certainly I hadn't been
around. Do you think I am going to submit to com-
petition with rank outsiders? Fellows you hardly
know, when I'm your tried and trusted?"
"T. and T.," mused Sylvia aloud. "American
T. and T. ? I read the market reports to Father some-
times, and I know that stock. You are tried, I'll
3.n.iiffid by Google
i86 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
admit, but trials are good for the sgul, and — yes;
I do trust you. But as to competition, I haven't
noticed any, and 'fellows I hardly know' there aren't.
One — ^Jack. Jarvis — but he's not in your class, Lloyd,
T. and T."
"Ritchie?" hinted Lloyd.
To her annoyance Sylvia felt herself blush.
"A Paxton boy who used to be good to me when
I was a reckless little girl," she said. "Do you call
that hardly knowing him? I know Gerald, and I
like him a lot, so, Lloyd, what's the use? You like
him, too."
"He's fine," said Lloyd, unwillingly, but honestly.
"Sylvia, it all began with fooling, but, truthfully, I
hate this summer and all the mixing-upl It's next
to impossible to have one of our good old times. I
wish it was we three again — Ruth and you and I —
and I could get on without Ruth I" Lloyd laughed
ruefully but he looked more rueful than laughing,
"The ravages of time, Lloyd," said Sylvia. "It
was fun to be kids, but that is understood to be — like
the London firms — Limited I I'm having fun still,
and not such different fun. I think you can be
eighteen and not allow your brow to become fur-
rowed, your damask cheek wrinkled with care.
You keep on playing, don't think about things —
that's my rule. "
"How in the name of sense are you going to keep
from thinking of anything that you want like
blazes?" broke out Lloyd. Then he bent over and
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"And Being Helped — " 187
wrenched Gwendolen's gears back and forth viciously
though the little roadster was behaving her best.
"Don't want anything; I don'tl" cried Sylvia,
lightly, and managing a gay little laugh as success-
fully as if her heart were not beating violently with
fear of what Lloyd might say next. "Funny old
Lloyd I You always did bother a lot about nothing,
in spite of your steady way of going along. It's such
a comfort to have a reliable brotherly chum to bank
on, Lloyd dear, especially to an unrelated girl like
me! I'm anxious to hear how Aunt Emily gets
on with her adopted Emily, by the way. I suppose
that child will be brought up to call me Cousin
Sylvia!"
Lloyd straightened himself and threw Sylvia a
look that told her that he understood her rapid,
desultory remarks, but he accepted the role that she
assigned to him,
"Why are you going over to hunt Enos Coffin,
Tinkf " he asked, ignoring her praise of his fraternal
qualities, which did not strongly appeal to him.
"To tell him to go to his Allimetta and give her
once more that 'marked-keys' ring which she re-
turned," cried Sylvia. "I saw the lady, Lloyd. I
had no difficulty in persuading her that Enos was the
man. But I think that she had had a butcher in her
eye that, for some reason, stayed all in her eye —
if you'll forgive me for putting it that way. It's
in the Allimetta key! So she was ready to listen to
my mission."
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1 88 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"My aunt I" exclaimed Ltoyd, with a shout of
lau^ter, as if he had nothing on his mind but a
boy's enjoyment of the story. "Seems to me you're
taking a big risk, making that sort of a match!"
"That's what Gabriel Gaby seemed to think," said
Sylvia. "I met AlUmetta at his shack; he intro-
duced us. But it's vrise to combine people of that
sort: suppose another sort of woman married Enos,
or a nice man married AlHmettal In union there is
strength, and that's what they both need."
"Well, there's the house, and I hope your punish-
ment may be light ! " said Lloyd, bearing down on the
small Coffin house.
"Mr. Coffin," said Sylvia, as Enos loped out to
salute her, "I have great and glorious news for you I
I have met the enemy — I mean your friend — and she
is yours!"
"Miss Bell, oh, Miss Bell! Do you mean Atti-
metta? Say, honest to Pete, do you mean AlU-
metta?" gasped Enos, almost overcome.
"Honest to Enos, I do I "cried Sylvia, gleefully.
"I had a little talk with her, and she told me that I
might send you to her with the 'marked-keys' ring,
and she will accept you both!"
Enos turned, and dropped his head down on the
gate post, sobbing.
"I can't hardly believe it; I can't," he whimpered.
"Miss Bell, what have you done? What have you
done? I'm bustin' with gratitood. You'd ought
to have a statute in the public square, that's what
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"Jnd Being Helped—" 189
you had ought to have! I'll thank you some day
when I get myself together, so to speak."
"You need never thank me," said Sylvia. "I
don't think the credit is mine. I think Miss Briggs
had missed you."
Lloyd drove away, choosing a road that would
take them farther from home before he turned to
go thither.
"I don't know that it's so awfully funny after
all," said Lloyd, his face sober.
"Nor I," Sylvia admitted. "It's an honour to
human nature, isn't it, Lloyd, that the funniest ex-
pression of feeling, even a funny sort of sentiment,
takes on dignity when it's sincere? I was rather
ashamed that I had laughed at poor Enos, and had
pleaded his cause as a little lark."
"Oh, but you meant it kindly all the while,"
said Lloyd, with conviction. "You have an easy-
going way of always wanting to straighten people
up, and to make them happy."
"It's so horrid to be unhappy!" Sylvia indirectly
admitted the accusation. " I never had to try
it long; I was sometimes unhappy, in spite of the
fun I had, till three years ago, but I'm such a happy
creature, and so lucky, that I hate like everything
to see anybody losing one day, crawling around with
a heavy heart,"
"Didn't Shakespeare ask if Sylvia was 'kind as
she was fair'? And didn't the song go on to say
something about her helping something or other?"
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190 *'^ko Is Sylvia f"
Lloyd would not speak of "love being helped," but
he smiled at Sylvia with real, unselfish affection.
"You help lots, Tinker Bell!"
"You're a tramp, old Lloyd I" said Sylvia, em-
phatically.
3.n.iized by Google
CHAPTER XIII
" — Inhabits There"
V^OUNG Roseleen, under training to be useful
■*■ in ways suitable to her capacity, had brought
in the morning mail and laid it on the breakfast
table. There were several letters for Mr. Bell,
only one for Sylvia.
Her father, having rapidly disposed of his own,
looked across to see Sylvia still reading her single
one, smiling, but drawing her delicate eyebrows to-
gether over it.
"You have not a heavy mail for a young person
who is supposed to be a belle — Sylvia, really, you
must take my word for it! I did not mean that for
a pun! I had the final e in my mind when I said
it, and no ulterior design!" Mr. Bell hastily de-
fended himself from Sylvia's accusing look.
"That's a comfort!" Sylvia cried. "You know,
Father, if I were a belle at all, it could be only in
Paxton, since I am not often away from home, and
with a telephone in the house there's nothing to
write me about. This is from Aunt Emily. For
such a distinct lady she writes a fearfully indistinct
hand I It always puzzles me. She is delighted
with her little Emily! Isn't that good?"
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"I only hope that the child will be delighted with
her," said Mr. Bell. "I can't see Emily giving a
child that wise admixture of discipline and spoiling
that all children need to be happy and good."
"Don't you think it will be different with this
child? Aunt Emily loved her father and expected
to marry him. I'd think that would make her
treat little Emily Anstruther quite differently from
any other child; named for Aunt Emily, too!"
Sylvia spoke with her eyes on her aunt's letter, and
did not see her father's surprised look that Sylvia
remembered and understood what he had forgotten.
"She says that she is letting the little girl have a
garden of her own, and a house in a tree; the car-
penter put it up for her, and that she tries not to
see how frightfully dirty she gets. She also says
that the child looks far stronger, has a better colour
than when she came to her, and sings all day long.
It seems that the other day Emily thanked Aunt
Emily enthusiastically for the good times which she
was letting her have, and Aunt Emily told her that
she had never run wild when she was a little girl,
and that she disliked seeing little girls hoydenish,
but that she had 'promised her cousin Sylvia to
let her romp, and would keep her word, and when
Cousin Sylvia came to see her next winter it was she
that Emily must thank for her good times', that she
'would be satisfied if Emily grew up to be like
Cousin Sylvia.' It may be that I've only one
letter, Father Bell, but that one is equal to a whole
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volume, several volumes! It is a History of Our
Own Times, and The Triumph of the Modem Girl,
and An Authentic Account of the Conversion of
Miss Emily Bell — more, too! Oh, the telephone!
Maybe it's for me!"
Sylvia sprang up to answer the call as her father
said:
"It's more than merely 'maybe'! I'm rarely
called."
"All right, Sally! . . . Yes, at two. I kiiow; I'll
go! I wondered why we weren't beginning. Good-
bye," Sylvia replied from her end of the wire.
"First call to a general rehearsal of the Greek
Fete, this afternoon," she explained to her father.
"I don't know, either; maybe it's a rehearsal of the
solo dances. Oh, I don't know! Anyway, it's a
rehearsal, so watch me in the lab.. Father; I may
practise with your starfish while I'm holding them
up to make them drop off a leg!"
"Sylvia Bell," Sally Meade began in the middle
of things, clutching Sylvia when she arrived at the
Meade house for the rehearsal that afternoon,
"we've cast you for Diana in the greatest thing
you ever saw! It's the third from the last dance;
the last will be a chorus — do you suppose I can
say that? The ensemble, you know. So we had to
put a solo or a duet dance just before that, to get
more contrast, but we want the Diana thing as near
the last as we can get it, because it's going to be the
kind that spoils anything that comes after it. Diana
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and Her Nymphs and the Sleeping Endymion!
Get the idea? Endymion's asleep on the grass;
you'd guess that I And Diana comes dancing at the
head of her nymphs and sees him. You know
Diana, for all her independence, got a case on
Endymion the moment she saw him. So that's
the idea; see? Diana dances a sort of admiration
dance, leading her nymphs, signifying he's the
prettiest and sweetest — catch on ? It'll be as grace-
ful as any bed of white lilies in a breeze you ever
dreamed of] Then Endymion awakes, sits up on
his elbow, registers: *Am I Really Me?' or words to
that effect, seeing Diana. Then up he gets, and
starts in dancing after the nymphs, who dance
faster and faster, Diana still ahead, flitting away.
You know Diana's long suit was flitting awayl
So on till the nymphs flit through the screening at
the rear, and Diana fools 'em I She slips back,
and she and Endymion do a turn by themselves,
signifying 'Pleased to Meet You.' That's good
history — Grecian Mythology — Diana did slip off to
meet Endymion, and the moral of that is: Every
dog has his day, or. There's nothing so sure as
that no one's secure. Take care, Sylvia I"
"Sally Meade, you are the craziest girl! You're
always that, but sometimes you're still crazier!"
cried Sylvia, laughing. "I'm not sure I like your
grand dance I Who's to be Endymion?"
"There you are! Put your finger right on the
danger spot first pop!" cried Sally, pretending
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profound admiration of Sylvia's cleverness. "We
thought either Doctor Ritchie or Lloyd, but which?"
"I imagine Lloyd would detest anything of that
sort," said Sylvia. " I don't know about Mr.
Ritchie — ^he's not a doctor yet, Sally. They both
dance well; I suppose it doesn't matter. Gerald's
older; boys hate to be made conspicuous,"
"It doesn't matter one bit while Endymion's
asleep, but when he wakes up it does matter. Which
is a neat little text for your mediations, Captain
Sylvial" said Sally. "Now come on. They're all
out in the billiard room, with the table gone, waiting
for us. We'll put Gerald in as Endymion, then.
Sylvia, Hermione Elmsley is a little genius, and
she's pleased to death that we're getting this up.
She says it will be a great ad. for her; people will
come from far and near to see it. You know the
girls' boarding school over at Baytide — Lavender
Hall? The girls call it the Purple Cow, you knowl
Well, Hermione has strong hope that the Misses
Lavender are going to engage her to teach dancing
there this winter. Isn't that the best ever? Maida
Clayton was simply ripping about our fete,
and the way we bolstered Hermione up so she didn't
need Maida's patronage, but Maida can't stand it
to be out of it, so she's crawled, and we're going to
let her dance Juno in one of the tableau dances.
Juno's so grand and elegant that Maida can't get
in any of her funny work. She manages to be in
bad taste, usually, but Juno will put a lid on hert"
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"Sally, you're a villain 1" cried Sylvia, laughing
while she tried to look reproachful.
Sally, not in the least repentant, took Sylvia out
to the billiard room and ushered her in with the
announcement:
"When Greek meets Greek! Grecians, allow me
to present the late Grecian nymph, Sylvia.
"We're going to make you dance Endymion,
Doctor Ritchie. You've had training in Greek
plays at college, and Endymion must know how to
get about in a chiton more particularly than some of
the other characters," said Sally, to Sylvia's relief.
She was half afraid of how Sally might explain
the choice of himself to Gerald. But Sally, though
she was, as Sylvia had called her, "a villain," set
a limit to her villainies.
"Well!" exclaimed Gerald, and said no more,
but his pleasure in his promotion was unmistakable.
The rehearsal began, and a short time sufficed
to show that the work of learning the dances was
not going to be simple.
Hermione was a thin little electric wire con-
ducting the mysterious spark of enthusiasm and
understanding into the performers.
"She's a genius! That's the word; a genius I"
cried Jack Jarvis, applauding Hermione wildly as
she checked him in his pretty dance with Ruth,
representing Psyche and Eros, to show him what
he should do at a certain point of the dance.
"Wouldn't you like to show her to New York?"
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asked Sylvia, finding it hard not to laugh at Jack,
yet liking him for the qualities which made her want
to tease him.
"I sure would!" said Jack, emphatically. "I'd
like an engagement for her in some bang-up show
where she could use her head and her feet both,
and let 'em see how they go together! They'd sit
up and take notice, I'll say!"
Sylvia was delighted to find that Jack held no
grudge against her, evidently had decided to accept
her terms, and make it comfortable all around by
being a good loser. Sylvia promptly decided that
she liked him a great deal.
Sylvia's dance required rehearsing chiefly for
the grouping, the pictures which were to be formed
at intervals by the poses of the nymphs around
their huntress leader. Sylvia herself, and Gerald,
and Sylvia's solo dance which she was to g^ve at
the beginning of the fete, Hermione would teach
privately, as she must all the dances of that class.
The twelve girls who were to dance as Diana's
nymphs were experienced in this sort of work; seven
of them Hermione had brought with her from the
hotel where she was one of that summer's enter-
■ tainers.
Gerald had, as he said, "a thinking part" in this
rehearsal of the Diana dance, lying an interested
spectator of the girls' pretty motions around him,
and Diana's admiration of him as he lay, supposed
to be asleep. Sylvia exaggerated her rapture over
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198 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
the discovery of this wonderful mortal, annoyed to
find herself embarrassed, less by her part than by the
other young people's enjoyment of it. All but Lloyd.
Lloyd gloomed at the whole thing, so helplessly sulky
that Sylvia was divided in mind between a desire
to laugh at him and a desire to console him.
Not being able to do either, Sylvia paid no atten-
tion to poor Lloyd, but went on dancing and singing,
getting to like her dance more and more as Her-
mione's suggestions informed it with pretty sig-
niEcance.
When it was going better, the Meades* maid came
hurrying out to the billiard room with a frightened
face.
"Miss Sally, oh. Miss Sally I The 'phone has
called Mr. Gerald Ritchie. His mother's took
bad!" she cried.
Gerald sprang to his feet and was off* like a shot.
Sylvia, knowing from her experience of the day
when she had lunched with the Ritchies what he
was going to, but perhaps not to so happy an out-
come, cried out compassionately:
"Oh, poor, poor Geraldl Do you want me to
go with you?"
Gerald turned back, but did not halt.
"Sylvia, yes! God bless you; I always want
you," he said before them all, eagerly accepting
her sympathy. After all, Gerald was still quite
young, not far beyond boyhood, and it was hard
to go home alone, perhaps to encounter death.
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Sylvia ran after him. Lloyd turned toward Ruth,
looking so unhappy that his little sisterly cousin
made it in her way to go over to him as soon as she
could, and speak to him.
Under the cover of the music for the dance in which
Maida Clayton was the principal figure, as Juno,
Ruth said:
" Lloyd, dear, don't mind so much. That's
Sylvia, you know. She is moved to pity and to
help every bit of suffering, in man or beast, that
she seesi It's not Gerald, it's unhapptness that
she has gone to, on one of her lovely, quick im-
pulses."
"You know what pity's akin to," muttered Lloyd.
"What's the use, Ruth? She'll be there with
Gerald if the worst happens, and — well, it's got to
be borne; can't be helped."
Sylvia, bareheaded in Gerald's car, the wind of
its swift motion whipping her hair around her face,
sat stiff and silent as he drove to the limit 6f his
car's speed, and far beyond the speed limit of the
law, to his mother.
Gerald took Sylvia into the drawing room and left
her.
"I'm grateful, Sylvia, but it's not the time to say
so," he said, and was gone.
It seemed to Sylvia that it was an endless time
before Gerald came down again. She looked up
at him, twisting her fingers nervously, but dared
not ask a question. Gerald dropped into a deep
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200 "Who Is Sylvia?"
armchair with such a look of misery on his face, so
exhausted, that Sylvia did not know how to construe
it.
She waited silently, and Gerald looked at her^
mana^g a slight smile.
"Plucky little Sylvia!" he said, and it came to
Sylvia that he had said precisely that years before
when he had taken her off the rocks from the in-
coming tide. "Scared to death, yet standing by
in case you could help mel You do help, Sylvia.
It's no end helpful to know you're down here when
I'm fighting upstairs; this is the second timel We've
won out once more, but this was by a narrower
margin. She's asleep now. Sylvia, there can't be
many more times."
"The one thing that would comfort me, in your
place, is that it's hard for her to keep coming back to
suiFer over again," said Sylvia.
"Certainly. Unless one is an utter brute he has
to be willing to see her free from pain. But "
Gerald stopped.
"Yes," said Sylvia, assenting to what Gerald
could not trust himself to say of his love and need
of his mother. "It is not yet, anyway, Gerald.
And now," she added, trying to speak cheerfully,
"I'm gomg to ask your woman in the kitchen to
make you a fine cup of coffee, and then you go off to
rest, while I go home."
"I'll order the coffee; we'll both have a cup, and
I'll have it brought in here. Perhaps you'll play to
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" — iTihabits There" 201
me a little, and then I'll take you home in the car.*'
Gerald was on his feet and going toward the door as
he spoke.
"I'd rather, much rather walk. I'm sorry I
came, if you bother over me. I thought, if you
needed help, letters written, telegrams sent, anything,
I'd be someone, even I haven't experience," said
Sylvia, distressed that he should serve her.
"I know precisely what you thought, Captain
Sylvia, Comrade Sylvia," said Gerald. "I might
have needed you badly; I suspect I might have been
badly bewildered. Stay where you are; don't you
know it will be good for me to drive after this?
Mother won't waken; she has to be given morphine,
you know."
Gerald went to order the coffee, but was back
quickly and asked Sylvia to play. "Mother can't
hear," he said.
He seemed so much like a big boy that Sylvia was
surprised. She had hitherto regarded Gerald as
decidedly grown up; she kept toward him much of
the attitude of her childhood. But now, under the
reaction of a respite from his threatened sorrow,
Gerald seemed a simple, quiet boy; a good boy, who
was doing what he had been told to do; who might,
conceivably, have just been punished and so was
subdued and quiet. She did not mind him now any
more than Lloyd; there was much of the same honest
boyhood in him that she liked in Lloyd. Sylvia
was fast concluding that boys were similar to one
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202 "Who Is Sylvia?"
another, while there was no end to the diversity of
girls.
Sylvia began to play. She had talent, and her
touch upon the keys was that singing touch that
fingers the keys almost as if they were harp strings,
and brings out of the piano all the legato sweetness
of which it is capable.
Sylvia had been as lazy about practice as most
children are, until, in the year in which, as she said,
"she met her father," by which she meant the year
in which they had grown close together, she had
discovered that Mr. Bell sang. After which she had
set herself faithfully to practise in the hope of playing
accompaniments for him and now she played beauti-
fully. Sylvia rightly judged that Mendelssohn's
sweet clarity of mood, and Beethoven's sublime
courage and faith in the eternal solution of earthly
problems of suffering and wrong, would help Gerald
now better than anything else that she could
choose.
She played movements from the Beethoven
sonatas, and left them for some of Mendelssohn's
loveliest Songs Without Words, till, to her delight,
she saw that Gerald had fallen asleep, utterly worn
out, his coffee half drunk on the table beside him,
his head fallen over sideways against the rolled top
of the big upholstered chair.
"Poor Geraldl" thought Sylvia. "He'll be per-
fectly disgusted with me and himself when he wakens,
but I'm going to steal away!"
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" — Inhabits There" 203
She slipped off the piano stool and noiselessly
crept over the rugs to the door. Then she went
down the hall and found the maid.
*'MilIy, I was playing to Mr. Ritchie and he fell
asleep. He is so tired I Please tell him that I
slipped out and went home, and not to mind, be-
cause I truly would rather walk, and that I was de-
lighted to know that he was resting; will you?" she
said,
"Surely, Miss Bell," said Milly. "Mr. Gerald
has it hard for such a young man, and this his va-
cation time from hard study, and loving his mother
as he does. I'll tell him. I heard how lovely and
quiet you were playing; I listened. He'll be ready to
have me beaten for not calling him, but you are right,
and good and kind to spare him."
Sylvia went homeward slowly, thinking grave
thoughts, with a sense of adult responsibility upon
her that was new to her.
Cassandra met her in the doorway; she had been
watching for her,
"Miss Sylvia," she said, "there is trouble."
Cassie's manner, her expression, was little short of
tragic.
"Oh, Cassie, what.'" cried Sylvia, her strained
nerves making her feel that there was little else in
the world, so that, unlike herself, she was quick to
take alarm.
"It is O'Malley!" said Cassandra.
Sylvia dropped down on the nearest chair.
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304 "^ho Is Sylvia?"
"Cassandra! Not, not O'Malley!" she gasped, a
band tightening around her heart.
"O'Malley" — Cassandra repeated the word aw-
fully — "went up into Norah's room, took Roseleen's
hat. She heard, and after him. He ran to the
window, high as it was "
**Cassiel" gasped Sylvia, clenching her hands and
shudderingly pressing them across her eyes.
*' Yes I " said Cassie. " Dropped that hat out the
window. Turned an* down over the stair's fast's he
could leg it, out the door, grabbed the hat "
"Didn't jump out the window? Isn't hurt?"
fairly screamed Sylvia, leaping to her feet.
"Jump out? A dog? Now 'f 'twas a cat! Cer-
tainly he didn't jump," said Cassandra, scornfully.
'"Course he isn't hurt. But Roseleen's hat is more
than hurt; it's chewed to bits I An' she's crying her
eyes out for it, poor little girl; clothes mean so much
to her, an' Norah bought that hat in New York for
her, an' it's the apple of her eye."
"Goodness! I'll buy her a whole orchard for
each eye!" cried Sylvia, beaming with joy. "I'll
buy her barrels of apples, or eyes, as to that!
I'll get her such a hat that she'll have a medal
struck for O'Malley, Distinguished Service Medal!
Where is the precious old ninny?"
"Round about," said Cassandra in high disgust.
"Ninny he is. If 'twas a puppy you would expect
no more of him, but a dog near five years old!"
"He is only four; please, Casabianca, don't in-
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" — Inhabits There" 205
crease his agel" Sylvia remonstrated. "I went
doing Grecian dances and time hung heavy on his
hands — paws! — and youth leaped in his veins. Oh,
there he is! Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon,
come here, dog of the world I Oh, if you had been
killed ! " Sylvia sat down on the floor to hug O'Malley,
not grown up after all.
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CHAPTER XIV
"Then to Sylvia Let Us Sing"
f ABORATORY ASSISTANT, I would rather you
'^ would come to the laboratory at about noon to-
day, not as early as usual. Would that seriously
incommode you? You note that I don't mind
incommodingyou a little? I am afraid that is true."
Sylvia looked up quickly, thinking that she de-
tected something out of the ordinary; she knew that
it could not be many days before the test of her
father's experiments to prove the theory, upon which
he had long been at work, would be made. She won-
dered whether the day, for which she was hardly
less anxiously eager than he was, could have dawned,
but her father smiled at her just as he always did;
she could not see that he looked different, so she de-
cided against her suspicion.
"No, Father; it won't put me out one bit, not me
myself; all I intended to do this afternoon was to
get at chit»ns for Ruth and me, under Aunt Helen's
Grecian leadership — she had Greek plays and things
at college, so she knows the ways of a worthy chiton.
We can do that any time. I've been aching — and
dreading I — to overhaul my room. I'll do that till
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"Then to Sylvia Let Us Sing" 207
twelve, then I'll call; 'Let me in! Let me in!' like
the fairy-tale wolf — was it? — at the lab. door. Will
that suit you, Cruel Parent, who drives away his one
child?" Sylvia asked.
" Perfectly. Didn't you ever find out that cruelty
is often only the reverse side of kindness ? Wait and
see whether or not I'm cruell " Mr. Bell gathered up
some loose memoranda sheets which lay beside his
plate, and went out.
Sylvia went to the swinging door that led into the
pantry between the dining room and the kitchen.
"Roseleen, I'm going up to my room to sort out
ever so much to be thrown away from still more to be
kept. Will you come up after an hour or more with
dusters and broom, and pan and brush, and take up
the bits I'm sure to scatter?" she called.
"Yes, miss, and that gladly," said Roseleen, who
was eager to seize every chance for personal service
to this young creature who seemed to her like an
embodiment of all the loveliness that she had ever
dreamed of as crowning maiden saints and fairy
princesses, and, best of all, was so kind to little
Roseleen.
Sylvia ran singing upstairs. The first thing that
she did was to tie a white cloth over her dark hair,
with a slight twist of upstanding ends which made
it becoming to her sun-browned skin and oval face
contours.
She looked around her, standing uncertainly in the
middle of the room for a moment. Then she decided
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2o8 "fFko Is Sylvia V
as it was a foregone conclusion that she would decide,
to begin on her bookshelves, and dropped tailor-wise
down on the floor before them.
" I suppose I ought to clear out a lot of the truck I
have on top of these shelves," thought Sylvia, taking
in each hand a toe of each shoe as they came out
under her skirt on opposite sides from their proper
right and left hand position.
She looked up along the low shelves on which was a
queer mixture of china figures which she had loved
and played with in her childhood; together with some
pieces of rare and valuable pottery. There were
several beautiful little reproductions in colours of
old Italian madonnas and angels, two architectural
photographs. Yet with these were three childish pic-
tures of nursery subjects, chubby babies and highly
accomplished animals, illustrating fairy tales.
Across the room were her "sporting goods," as
she herself said : bat, racquet, poles, net, flanked by
her "ladylike belongings"; Sylvia's dressing table
and dresser were covered with the finest linen, beauti-
fully embroidered; the tools for her toilette upon
them were handsome with the plainness that only the
best materials and designs attain.
"It's a nice room, in spite of itself," thought
Sylvia. "I do like it, even when I get back to it
from other girls' pretty rooms, but it certainly is
piccalilli in design! Perhaps on my twenty-first
birthday I'll put away all the kiddy things and make
it consistent. There's that forlorn china cat with
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*'Tkfn to Sylvia Let Us Sing" 209
the broken ear tips. I ought to chase her off. But
how I used to carry her about, and how I loved her!
She was so smooth to clasp, and so kind to suck when
things got too bad to be borne, and I had to be con-
soled! It's mean to go back on her. It's I that have
changed not she! I don't care how she looks, sitting
there against that heavenly blue jarl She shall sit
there awhile longer, anyway. I won't say scat to
you, so don't be troubled, Pussina, my dearl"
Sylvia fell upon her bookshelves, having renewed
this decision, frequently made before, and began to
take out books, assorting them as she went, into
three piles: "Certainly. Uncertain. No." So she
labelled the piles in her own mind, meaning books
she would not give up, books that she might give up,
books that she would not harbour.
" Funny the books people do buy, and strange they
buy them to give someone else," thought Sylvia.
"One shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but
what can be done when the animal seems to be all
mouth, and comes at you with it stretched high and
wide ? " Sylvia laughed a little with enjoyment of her
own picture of the steed upon which she was meditat-
ing. She had grown up so separated from children
of her own age by her brotherless and sisterless
state, and her constant reading, that she had early
formed the habit of entertaining herself in this way.
"Oh, Roseleen, I'm nowhere near ready for you,"
Sylvia cried as Roseleen presented herself in the
doorway. "I've only begun!"
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"Yes, miss, and I didn't come," said Roseleen,
her meaning clear though she surely was there in her
proper person. "It's company, miss; someone askin*
for you, and it's Mr. Ritchie, he told me to say, and
would you forgive him comin' this early, but he —
he 'Deed I don't know what it was at all he said
he came for, but 'twas to see you, 't anyrate."
"I'll find out, Roseleen," said Sylvia, scrambling
to her feet, first disentangling one of them from her
skirt, which had caught it, perhaps to punish a young
American for sitting like a Turk.
Sylvia ran out of the room and down the stairs
before Roseleen could sufficiently recover her pres-
ence of mind to remind Sylvia of her improvised
dusting cap. Consequently when Sylvia came into
the room Gerald Ritchie turned to greet her, but
laughed with an admiring look of amusement, and
instead of "good morning" said:
"Hallo, Beatrice Cenci — or is it Madame Reca-
mier?"
"Why either?" asked Sylvia.
"They both wore their head tied up more or less
like that," explained Gerald, and, as Sylvia put up
her hand and started to untie her white covering, he
added: "Let it alone, Sylvia. It's quite nifty and
no end becoming. Looks domestic — not lab. to-
day?"
"Not yet. It is domestic, excavating my own
room, and getting ready for the dust of centuries to
settle on my head — it does on excavators, doesn't
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"Then to Sylvia Let Us Sing" 21 1
it ? Did we say good morning, Gerald ? And is your
mother comfortable ? " Sylvia asked.
"Good morning, Sylvia," Gerald said, docilely.
" Mother is rather more comfortable than she often is,
thanks. Please, Sylvia, let me apologize. When I
found you'd gone, walked home, and that I'd actually
fallen asleep with you there, you ! What can I say f "
"My playing never had such a tribute before,"
said Sylvia. "I tried so hard to make you rest. I
was perfectly delighted, and as proud as a peacock to
find I'd made you relax, even to sleep! I liked the
walk home; it's no distancel Why, you do mind,
don't youf 1 thought you only felt you ought to
mind, because it wasn't the correct thing for a host
to do when he's entertaining a lovely girl I Oh,
come, Gerald, it wasn't a lovely girl; it was only
Sylvia, the youngster you've always known. Do
you suppose I don't know how one drops all down in
a small heap when there's been such a frightful
strain, and it's over? I loved to have you go to
sleep; it was nice and helpful, and I was heartsick
when I thought I was no sort of good to you!"
"No good ? Sylvia " Gerald checked himself.
"Will you come with me, just for a tiny spin — if you
can't come for a long one — and let me do two things:
First, let me pretend it was yesterday, and I was
taking you home. Sort of a consolation prize, don't
you see ? I'm awfully upset by yesterday, and you
can't make me feel it wasn't beastly rude. Anyway,
I don't have you at home so often that I can afford a
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112 "Who Is Sylvia?"
nap, waste time. Then, secondly, I want to tell
you how much good you did do me, what I think of
your starting right off, leaving the crowd and
coming along when you knew I was in trouble, like a
blessed little Sister of Charity! I can tell you better
when I'm driving, and Td like to tell you. But
there's still one thing more. Mother wanted me to
bring you back with me, even if you could not stay
more than a few minutes. She wants to see you;
there's something she wants to give you. Mother
realizes, of course, that she is not sure of an hour.
She is fond of you, Sylvia ; there is something that she
would like to say to you in case — before she — ^while it
can be said, you know."
Sylvia's first impulse was to run back upstairs,
whisk off her dust covering, whisk on her hat and a
long coat over her morning gown, and go with Gerald.
He looked so cast down with mortification over
his nap that, though Sylvia thought it foolish, she
wanted to make him feel better. But as he further
unfolded the motives of his desire to get her to go out
with him, Sylvia changed her mind. She did not
want to be told how Gerald felt about her impube
to help him in his sorrow; she did not want to hear too
much of his gratitude to her. And when he went on
to say that his poor mother wanted to tell her some-
thing before she died, Sylvia recoiled. She liked
Mrs. Ritchie; above all, she pitied her, but she shrank
from a demand upon that pity, instinctively dreading
the form that demand might take. In stories dead
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hands sometimes held tight on young lives. Sylvia's
healthy youth drew back from any attempt that
might be made to bind her above a grave.
"I can't go out this morning, Gerald," Sylvia said.
"I must be in the laboratory before long. Anyway,
please never thank me for going home with you. It
was such a little thing to do. Who wouldn't stand
by when trouble came? I've owed you a debt, any-
way, since I was ten, for taking me off the rocks I
Tell your mother I'll go to see her soon. Thank her
for asking me; tell her I will go soon. Ruth and I
have talked of going often. But I can't go to-day."
"There's no need of my reminding you that the
days to go may be few, Sylvia," Gerald said, sadly.
" I won't urge you, but Mother wants you. You've
been too kind for me to be importunate."
"I wish you wouldn't act and speak as though I
were coming off a mountain top, Gerald Ritchie,"
crid Sylvia, impatiently. "I'd hke it a lot better if
you'd act as if I were what I am, Clement Bell's Httle
Sylvia, grown tall, but no more consequence than
the ten-year-old snip you used to be nice to, when
the other big boys couldn't see her from their im-
mensely superior height!"
"When a child grows into a woman, a beautiful,
clever, splendid girl, she is of more consequence.
You're always fighting that fact, but you've got to
pay for being the "
"Give me time then," cried Sylvia, interrupting
Gerald's hesitating yet emphatic praise. "Pay-
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214 "H^ko Is Sylvia f"
ment isn't due yet I If I've got to be broken to har-
ness, even silken harness, you've got to let the colt
run wild, or free, for another year or so. Goodness,
Gerald, I only want to be happy, can't you see that f "
"You make it clear enough," admitted Gerald.
"To be happy means to you to be let alone."
"I've tried that for eighteen years; it worked
well," Sylvia reminded him. "It's as if all the rest
of you were taking the watch to pieces to see it run!"
"I'm afraid I'd better take myself off, Sylvia, and
let you go back to your work." Gerald smiled, but
not happily. "I wish you could come with me.
May I come soon to take you out? And am I for-
given for my stupid rudeness?"
"You aren't forgiven for dropping off when you
were completely worn out, because that was the
rightest sort of right thing, but I suppose you must
be for^ven for making a fuss about nothing, though
that's always a little hard for me." Sylvia laughed,
but she meant it. "Good-bye, nice Gerald. I do
like you a lot: you know that. And give my love to
your mother. I'll go to see her soon, quite soon,
truly."
Gerald took the hand Sylvia held out. She gave
his hand a hearty squeeze of sympathy, knowing that
he was saying to himself: "It is not safe to delay
coming." Poor Gerald! And about this great
matter he was entirely simple, making no appeal for
sympathy, no outcry over his gnawing pain.
Gerald went slowly away, got into his car, and
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"Then to Sylvia Let Us Sing" 215
drove off, without looking back to the house where,
upon the piazza, Sylvia stood waiting to give him a
final farewell wave,
"She likes me enough, and not too much to say so
frankly. She wrings my hand like the best sort of a
boy chum, standing shoulder to shoulder, and sorry
if I'm hiti Comrade Sylvia she is, the best sort of a
loyal, devoted comrade, but love I Sylvia Bell puts
up her frank friendship as a barrier against it, and
that's a barrier that can't be broken through,"
thought Gerald, sadly and wisely.
Sylvia, going slowly back to her room, felt a little
hurt that Gerald had not given her a chance to wave
to him.
"He is fine," she thought. "I never knew him
till this summer, wasn't enough consequence to be
knownl He's the finest boy I know — ^well, of course
Lloyd! " Sylvia interrupted her own thoughts
to say aloud to Roseleen, whom she found waiting for
her: "There's no use going on this morning, Rose-
leen. My father wants me in less than an hour. I'll
have to put off my unlucky room again. We'll
bundle back these books I took out — except these
which I'm going to send to the poor heathen, if
there are any heathen I've a grudge againsti Rose-
leen, callers in the morning, however nice, are hold-
backs!"
"You've but to look for it, miss, when you're
young an' lovely. Once you're married you'll be
let do housework with no one interruptin' you," said
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2i6 "Who Is Sylvia?"
young Roseleen, with the philosophy of one still
fifteen and untroubled.
Sylvia set back the books which were to remain
on her shelves, and threw herself across the bed,
watching Roseleen dust the room, carefully taking
up and setting down on the same spot exactly each
of the incongruous articles which years had drifted up
on Sylvia's shelves, and which sentiment had held
there.
"Roseleen, I forgot to tell you that I think Mrs.
Leveritt will take you on as a sort of second-second
maid — say. two-and-a-half maid," Sylvia said, sud-
denly. "She'll teach you the best ways in all the
world of doing the best things in the world for you to
do, and in all the world I don't know another such
lovely, dear, sweet woman! I've been hoping she
might take you, and I think she will. You'll be a
lucky Roseleen if she willl"
"Do you go there a great deal, miss? You do, to
see Miss Ruth. Then I'll Be glad to go, since you
can't make room for me," said Roseleen, and Sylvia
felt that she had received a compliment that was
worth having. As Thackeray long ago pointed out,
a servant has great opportunity to know his employer,
and his criticism is not based on conjecture.
"Twenty-five minutes to twelve, Roseleen! As
everybody always says: Where has this morning
gone ? " sighed Sylvia, indolently pulling herself erect.
"It's gone to join the first momin' that ever was,
in the Garden of Eden, miss; that's what Sister
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*'Then to Sylvia Let Us Sing" 217
Aquinas used to tell us, at home in school, did one of
us ask that, an' she'd say they was all one, now,
when they'd slipped past us into eternity," replied
Roseleen.
"Why, Roseleen, that's a beautiful answer, and
most profound!" cried Sylvia, delightedly. "Did
the children take it inf"
"Oh, yes, miss, in a general way," said Roseleen,
calmly. "We do Be hearin' many of such answers at
school. Often we'd not pay attention, but it comes
to you later on; like that now."
Sylvia smiled, but she looked thoughtful as she
went into her dressing room to prepare for laboratory.
"I may dress for dinner, I'm sure," she thought.
" Father must be playing some sort of game with me.
I'm not to work at this hour, that's sure."
So she put on a white dress, and fastened into
place a narrow ribbon belt of the most delicate blue
around her waist.
"My best-beloved loves blue. He told me once
that my mother wore it a great deal," Sylvia said
when Roseleen expressed her pleasure in the line of
lovely colour falling into the snowy film of her skirt.
"I like to wear blue and white for Father. All
through, Roseleen? I expect your hat to-night. I
ordered one from Baytide, described what I wanted
on the telephone, and I'll be disappointed if it is
not even nicer than the one Charles O'Malley tore to
pieces. Would you expect an Irish terrier to tear up
a little Irish immigrant's hat, Roseleen?"
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2l8 "Who Is Sylvia?"
"It's hard tellin' what any Irish'll Be at, miss,"
said Roseleen, to Sylvia's delight, "let alone a terrier
dog."
Sylvia carried out her programme, and went to
the laboratory door, where she meekly announced
herself with three distinct knocks on the door.
Eben Tompkins opened it; he looked, for him>
excited — Eben was a phlegmatic person. "Come in.
Miss Sylvia; we was lookin' for you," he said, and
Sylvia wondered, for Eben was too true a Yankee to
call her Miss under ordinary conditions.
"Welcome, Assistant!" said Mr. Bell, coming
forward to greet Sylvia. He took her hand as if
she had been a ceremonious caller, and, holding it,
brought her into the laboratory.
"Assistant, I have an announcement to make to
you in which you are deeply concerned "
"Father I" cried Sylvia, trying to clasp her hands,
forgetting that her father held one of them. "It's
done? It's a success?"
"It is done; it is a successi" her father echoed her.
"Miss Bell, you have helped to establish a scientific
fact which will be of immense service to the world."
"Did you get the last result this morning? Is it
exactly as you expected ? What shall you do about
it?" cried Sylvia,
"I was ready to clinch it last night, but it was
better to wait till this morning. It has worked out,
developed precisely as I foresaw that it would. My
guess has proved to have been correct. I shall
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''Then to Sylvia Let Us Sing" 219
publish the history of our process, its development, in
a pamphlet that will be sent to all the scientists in the
world who are interested in our line of investigation.
'Clement Bell. Laboratory Assistant Sylvia Bell,'
That's the way the pamphlet will be signed I Those
names will be printed clear and black, directly under
the title of the discovery, on the cover page. How
about it, Assistant?" cried Mr. Bell.
"Oh, Father! Heavenlyl" cried Sylvia. Then
she reconsidered. "No; not me, no! It's too ab-
surd. A girl like me, who only did what you told her
to, who doesn't know beans!"
"It was not beans, if you recall it; it was the lower
forms of sea life with which we worked it out, my
dear," said Mr. Bell, gravely. "I would not take it
upon myself to pretend to the world that you knew
beans, but I'm going to have my girl's name on the
title page of that pamphlet announcing this discovery,
if only to gratify a certain feeling I have toward her.
Sylvia, dear, aren't you the innermost associate of
everything that I do. In the deepest sense, but, in
this special thing, have you not worked with me
toward my end?"
"Yes, Father," said Sylvia, swallowing hard.
"I'm — I'm pleased and happy; don't mind me."
"As though I didn't know," cried Mr. Bell.
"Sylvia, we dine out to-night! Invite Ruth, Lloyd,
and who else "
"Gerald Ritchie!" cried Sylvia, promptly, "He's
having such a hard time. And — oh, that's enough!"
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220 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
"And we'll celebrate our triumph at the hotel
in a dinner that probably will not be so good as
Cassie's, but will mark an Occasion," Mr. Bell ended
his sentence.
"Father, I am happy!" cried Sylvia. "I don't
see how I can be so happy, when there's only one of
me! I feel like at least twelve people, all filled to
overflowing!"
She flung herself rapturously on her father's neck,
who had been wondering at the delay of this part of
the reception of his news.
"You seem to be at least twelve, Daughterkins !
You are a vigorous young person!" he gasped.
But it was easy to see that he did not object to the
onslaught, and that to him Sylvia counted, not for
twelve, but for the world.
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CHAPTER XV
"That Sylvia Is Excelling"
/^ASABIANCA, I feel much stranger^and more
^^^ like a stranger to myself — than the little old
woman did who had been to market 'her eggs for to
sell' and fell asleep by the highway. She had only
her skirts cut off. I've had a whole laboratory cut
off. You can't imagine how strange it is not to go
out there every morning to work," Sylvia said one
morning three weeks after the dinner in honour of
Mr. Bell's triumph.
"It must," said Cassandra. "Habits bind us,
which is why we have to take care to make 'em the
right kind. Ain't your father going on with those
nasty things, out there?"
"Oh, he could never drop his work," cried Sylvia.
"But he will not go on this summer; not this summer
and perhaps not for much longer. Maybe we'll
'sail away for a year and a day to the land where the
bong-tree grows'l Maybe we'll go abroad. Would
that be too hard on you, Casabianca dear? You'd
always stand by? Would you mind dreadfully if we
went away.Father and I, and didn't stay on the burn-
ing deck with you — were gone more than a year,
you real Casabianca?"
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222 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
"I do wish. Miss Sylvia, you'd drop that foolish
name, which is near enough like Cassandra to be
the worse for it. It was bad enough when you were
younger, but now a great girl like you! How do
you suppose it sounds?" Cassie cried, her long-
standing grievance breaking out anew.
"Nice and silly, but no end flattering," said Syl-
via, promptly. "Would you grieve for us, Casa —
Cassandra?"
"Miss Sylvia, I'm a rational human being, I hope,
and I couldn't expect you never to go about, but
stay right here, now you've grown to be eighteen
and five feet seven. I am steeled to what may
arise. But your dog is not," said Cassandra.
"No," said Sylvia, sadly. "O'Malley would pine.
He'd get into the papers as one of those unbearable
cases of the dog dying of a broken heart, longing for
his owner. I told Father I wouldn't go unless we
could first be sure that O'Malley would be reason-
ably contented. What I want to do is to get a car,
learn to drive it, take it over with us, and let
O'Malley go, too. Then travel about in our own
car, O'Malley on the front seat beside me. Father in
the back. And who do you suppose beside himf
Cassandra Billings ! How's that for a programme ?
And Father says it's feasible I"
"Me! In Europe!' cried Cassandra, turning a
dark red. "Miss Sylvia, how could I? I never
approved of Europeans. Lots of 'em can't speak
English. I misdoubt people of other races. I've
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"That Sylvia Is Excelling" 223
been brought up from my birth to believe that the
English tongue sort of brought a blessing to its
users, so to speak, and that other countries had to
get along in some sort of a makeshift way. What
do you suppose they know in It'ly about the
Pilgrim Fathers and how they cast off their shackles
into the breaking waves, dashing high, so to speak?"
Sylvia deserved credit for the gravity with which
she heard this rhetorical question.
"Sadly little, I'm afraid, Cassie, but on the other
hand there are people here who haven't read Dante,
and would fall down badly in an examination in —
say the Ghiberti gates in the Baptistery at Florence,
or what happened when Clovis became king of
the Francs I We won't take Bunker Hill monument
over to measure things by. Wouldn't you love to
go, Cassie?" she cried.
"I missed my own bed when I went to Niagara
Falls that time. Yet I might go. I'd hate to feel
there wasn't any one to look after you, if you got a
sore throat, or your father, either," Cassie admitted.
"Father is honoured, recognized, I mean, at last,
Cassie 1" Sylvia said. "He's had the nicest letters
frpm the scientific schools. He announced the
result of his work to them first, by letters. Dear
me, I've no business to stand here talking to you,
with all that must be done for the Greek Fete to-
night!"
Sylvia fled, but as she went Cassie said, proudly,
yet contemptuous of the rest of the world :
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224 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
"I never knew what your father was at til! you
explained it to me, Miss Sylvia, but I knew's well's
I do now that he was great enough, if that's alll"
"Casabianca!" Sylvia called back. "Burning
decks wouldn't budge you!"
It was the day of the fete, come at last. August
was in its third week; the summer had flown, crowded
with nothing of moment, apparently, yet crowded,
so Sylvia felt, with nameless moments which were
signiBcant, combining to work changes. The island
which was named "Hen and Chickens" lay off
Paxton, not far from shore. It had received its
name from being one central island, with several
small hummucks connected with it which had once '
been separate small islands, but which had been re-
vealed by the subsidence of the tide waters to be
basically connected with the largest mother island.
This was some four acres large, rising up from the
water to a plateau top, upon which the dances were
to be given.
It was an ideal place for a thing of the sort. The
audience would be scattered at the "Hen's" base,
filling all the "Chickens," and the dances against
a summer sky on the top of the hill of the main
island would be visible equally all around the tiny
archipelagian group. The moonlight, supplemented
by electricity, would clearly illumine the theatre,
while clothing it with the mystic poetry of their
rays.
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"Thai Sylvia Is Excelling" 225
The treasurer reported a large sum of money, the
proceeds of the sale of tickets. The Yacht Club
had bought tickets to a man, and for all the members
of their families. The yachts were turning out in
great numbers, not merely Paxton's fleet, but those
from the neighbouring colonies along the shore, and
from Baytide, the considerable town near by.
The performers, shrouded in cloaks, gathered at
the rear — if there be a rear to a round island — of
the Hen, brought over in the generously offered
yachts.
There were dressing rooms improvised amid the
trees. The collective island was abundantly wooded
up its sides and over the Chickens, which heightened
the opportunity for effective pictures on the plateau
top of the main island by throwing the base into
heavy shadow, contrasting with the clear, bril-
liantly lighted space on the top.
Hermione Elmsley was in her element, yet so
nervous that the girls pitied her.
"I want it to be good! Oh, I do want it to be
good!" she repeated, not reaUzing that she spoke
her wish aloud.
"If you ask me, I think most of it is punk," said
Maida Clayton. "You've made a mistake. Miss
Elmsley; you'll see it too late. You can't expect
amateurs to put a big thing Hke this across. Lots
of these people never leamt fancy dancing. What
will you do next, especially if this is no good?"
"I shall teach in Baytide, whether it's good or
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226 "Who Is Sylvia?"
bad," said Hermione, trying not to mind what she
knew was spite.
Jack Jarvis was standing by, listening to Maida
with a scowl.
"She'll come to New York, that's what she'll dot"
he said, "She won't teach anywhere if I can help
it! Little peach 1"
"WhatI" cried Maida, staring in sheer amazement.
" Do you mean — I see you mean But it was
Sylvia Bell!"
"Yes, it was," Jack admitted. "Anybody that
saw Miss Bell and didn't admire her — chump !
But she shied oiF, and I hadn't got it hard enough to
die. Sylvia Bell's straight; she didn't let me get
hard hit. Now I'm done fori We weren't going to
say a word yet, but you need to be told, Miss Clayton,
that Miss Elmsley has a permanent engagement.
I'm going to show her to New York, and she'll spend
her time teaching me to dance her steps, to her own
music. Congratulate me I"
"My gracious grandmother!" gasped Maida.
"The Jarvis millions!"
"Oh, say, Miss Clayton, I hate that, don't you
know! Am I such a mess that you think only of
Dad's ducats?" cried honest Jack in real distress.
" You're a dandy good fellow, Jack Jarvis I Who's
belittling you?" cried Gerald Ritchie, slapping
Jack on the back as he came up in time to hear only
what Jack said.
"Say! Go light on your taps! A chiton's miles
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"That Sylvia Is Excelling" 227
thinner than a coat," remonstrated Jack. "I
didn't like Miss Clayton's implying that Hermione
wasn't getting much but cash, which I don't mean
to allow to be all that she gets. Congratulate me,
doc-elect: Hermione's going to marry me!"
"By all that's wonderfull" cried Gerald. "I
certainly do congratulate you, but even if it isn't
the custom, I congratulate Miss Elmsley as much.
He's a pippin. Miss Elmsley, and believe me I'm
already a dandy at this sort of diagnosis!"
"Oh, dear me, Jack, why did you say anything
before the dances?" cried Hermione. "I didn't
want any one to know yet ! Besides, I wanted to
tell Sylvia Bell first, myself."
"Don't mind me," laughed Gerald. "Miss Qay-
ton and I can hold our tongues, for that matter, but
let us tell I Won't we all dance gloriously in your
honour, now!"
There was not time for more than a swift rush of
all the girls upon Hermione, and some rapid hand-
shaking with Jack on the part of the boys, before
the opening tableau was staged.
It was a beautiful grouping of all the performers,
and if its title: "On the Acropolis," left something
to be desired in the way of Grecian architecture, at
least the brow of the hill under the moonlight, with
the sea glimmering around, beyond the picture, was
soul-satisfying in its beauty.
The group broke up into motion, a beautiful
ballet of all the dancers, like an opening chorus.
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228 "Who Is Sylvia r"
Then followed the dances of one, two, and more
performers. By the time three of these had been
given there was no longer doubt as to the success
of the fete.
The audience was enthusiastically encoring the
numbers, repetitions were necessary; the entertain-
ment bade fair to last beyond midnight.
Little Ruth Hapgood had a charming dance in solo,
preceding her dance with Jack Jarvis, and introduc-
ing it. Ruth's solo dance was The Search of Psyche,
and it merged into the dance of Eros and Psyche,
with Jack.
Ruth was more like a fairy in her flowing white
chiton than like a Greek.
"Isn't she a darling?" cried Sylvia, waiting with
Cierald for their dance, always ready with enthu-
siastic admiration for Ruth. "She's so exquisite,
so delicate, so like a shell cut in cameo I Could any
one help loving her?"
"It wouldn't be hard to love her," Gerald said,
smiling, but his eyes rested on Sylvia, not on Ruth,
kindling into pleasure in her joy in Ruth.
"It's a base libel to say that girls are always
jealous of one anotherl"
"Of course!" Sylvia scorned the accusation.
"I'm jealous for Ruthie; never of herl"
"Yes, but she's not jealous of you, which is more
meritorious," said Gerald. |
"FuffI" cried Sylvia. "No hinted compliment
over little Ruth's pretty head! I'd be lucky to
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"That Sylvia Is Excelling" 229
measure up to that small creature in one way,
though I'm half a foot higher in the other sensel"
Lloyd sauntered over to them.
"Having a good time, Tink?" he asked. "You
look pleased."
"I am. You?" returned Sylvia.
"Oh, yes; pretty good. It's a good show. I'll
bee it's a dream seen from down there where the
audience is. But they paid to see it; we didn't," said
Lloyd. "Any special plan for getting home, Sylvia ? "
"No. Father is here, of course, and Cassandra;
Norah and Roseleen, for that matter. I'll have
plenty to see me safe," said Sylvia.
"Count me in, Tink. In fact, count the others
out, and me in I I have Gwendolen here, and I
want to drive you back," said Lloyd.
"How did you get her over here?" asked Sylvia,
with apparent innocence.
"Over at the Club House, when the yacht brings
you across. Poor thing! So young, yet her mind
quite gone! Thinks Gwendolen can be driven on
the ocean! She's not a submarine, my child; she's
a super-terra!" Lloyd said, severely.
"What it is to be in college and know Latin
derivatives!" sighed Sylvia, "But I knew Gwen-
dolen was some kind of a terror! All right, Lloyd-
boy; I'll go home in Gwendolen, and I'm properly
grateful."
"We're called, Sylvia. The Diana-Endymion &
Co. dance is next," said Gerald.
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230 "ffho Is Sylvia ?"
His face had clouded over. Sylvia treated Lloyd
like her old-time comrade, which he was; they talked
impertinent nonsense to each other, far removed
from sentiment, yet Gerald felt that it stood for
profound aifection and trustful, mutual under-
standing. It seemed to push him off into the ranks
of the outsiders. In vain he reminded himself that
in this familiarity lay his best hope of one day
winning from Sylvia the sort of love he wanted from
her, that Lloyd was to her almost a brother. The
fear of it lingered with him; he told himself that
he "did not like it."
There was no possible way to arrange a drop
curtain before this island stage, as indeed, if there
had been one, it must have been hung all around the
crown of the hill, the audience being placed com-
pletely around "the Hen" and on all the encircling
"Chickens," the performers turning on all sides as
they danced. Therefore it was necessary for the
dancers to take the stage and assume their positions
in the eyes of the spectators as a sort of tableaux
vivant. Gerald, as Endymion, strolled out, wan-
dered about a moment, then lay down and fell asleep.
After the briefest space of time Diana came out,
leading her nymphs, who emerged on all sides from
among the trees, and began their dance.
Tall Sylvia, in her floating Grecian draperies,
clasped at the shoulders by rhinestones that gleamed
almost like precious gems; a luminous crescent above
her dark head, carried regally on her slender neck.
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"That Sylvia Is Excelling" 231
above her strong, shapely young shoulders; her bow
in her hand, her quiver on her hip, was so lovely a
sight that a subdued murmur rippled through the
massed spectators, breaking into applause quickly
subdued.
Diana's nymphs were selected with especial ref-
erence to throwing into full effect the beautiful
young goddess's height. They were closely matched ;
all at least half a head shorter than Diana; graceful,
accomplished dancers; not one incompetent, for this
was one of the most charming and important of the
evening's numbers. As she danced in a swift run-
ning step, with sudden significant pauses, bending low
as if espying game coursing the forest, Sylvia was the
embodiment of girlhood; free, innocent, and glad,
and, streaming after her, came many white-robed
maidens, all moving rapidly, with an indescribable
effect of joy in life, and in living green things, and in
stars and winds.
But suddenly Diana stopped, poised as if for
flight, one foot tipped on the toes, in the pose of
the Diana of the Louvre.
Then she began to move in a totally different way,
in swaying waltz time, to a plaintive waltz, played
delicately by one violin. She had seen EndymionI
Around and around the sleeping youth Diana and
her nymphs danced, admiring him, till he wakened,
and, rising on his elbow, he watched the goddess and
her train.
As he started up to join them, Diana and her
3.n.iiffid by Google
232 "Who Is Sylvia?"
nymphs fled, their flight made like the flight of
doves, white draperies flowing backward, white
arms curved above their heads, rhythmically run-
ning in long, gliding steps, from the mortal.
The applause that arose was interspersed with
enthusiastic cries of: "Braval" "Again!" "Encore!"
"Come Back!"
Diana came dancing in alone and, prefaced by the
prettiest play of unwillingness, coyness, yielded her
hand to Endymion and danced with him a beautiful
dance of joy expressing that, goddess and mortal,
each was lovely in the eyes of the other.
Gerald danced as few young men can, or will
let themselves dance, being for the most part too
self-conscious for this sort of art. Gerald danced
as Endymion, forgetting Gerald. Sylvia was a
vision; her slender grace, her willowy height, her
lovely face alight with eagerness, enjoying her own
motion, made a picture that no one who saw her
would ever forget.
"What a girl you have there, Clement!" said
an old Paxton man to Sylvia's father. "Other
girls may have something that she has, but Sylvia
Bell alone excels in all ways; as a loving daughter,
in beauty, cleverness, grace, and — most of all — in
her happy innocence!"
"Yes," said Mr. Bell, tremulously, for Sylvia thus
set before him on the hilltop seemed to him newly
revealed to him. "It's contrary to convention for
me to say, but who is like her? God keep her thus!"
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"That Sylvia Is Excelling" 233
Sylvia and Gerald were held before their audience
to the utmost limit of possibiHty, but at last they
were allowed to disappear.
Gerald turned to his partner with a look, half
smiling, half near to tears.
"They didn't want us to stop, EHanal I wish
we never mightl" he said.
Lloyd, looking miserable, came up to congratulate
Sylvia. Ruth, first of all the girls crowding up
to celebrate her triumph, reached up and pulled
down to her Diana's crescent-crowned head.
"It was so wonderful, my darfing, that I adore
you for it, but, oh, Sylvia, don'tl Here's our
blessed old Lloyd I"
There were but two other numbers to follow the
Diana and Endymion dance. The final one, like
the opening dance, brought together all the per-
formers for a sort of ballet finale.
It was hardly over, indeed the audience was
clamouring for at least a partial repetition, when
Mrs. Leveritt came hurrying up the side of the
hill with a distressed face.
"Geraldl Where is Gerald Ritchie Oh, here
you arel Gerald, your mother is ill. The doctor
is there. It is not her ordinary seizure. She has
asked for you, and for Sylvia BelL I am going
with you. Sylvia, get your cloak; you must go
as you are; no time to losel Come, poor Gerald!"
she said.
Hardly realizing what washappening, thus snat-
3.n.iiffid by Google
234 "^Ao ^J Sylvia r"
ched from triumphant enjoyment, Sylvia obeyed,
caught up her cloak, and, with Mrs. Leveritt,
followed by Gerald, made her way down to the
beach where a small sailboat was waiting to take
them to the mainland.
It was only when they were part way across
that Sylvia realized that Lloyd was with them.
"Gtoendolen's a roadster, but we can all hang
on somehow, and I'll run you up quicker than
any one else, so I came along," he said, quietly.
There was scarcely a word spoken going across.
Suddenly Sylvia asked:
"Does Father know?"
"Yes; I totd him. He understands," said Mrs.
Leveritt, and no one spoke again.
Mrs. Leveritt took Sylvia on her lap in Lloyd's
roadster, Gerald stood on a running board, Lloyd
drove. It never occurred to any one to think how
the car must have looked, driven by a youth in a
Greek chiton, another Grecian youth on the run-
ning board, Diana on a modem American lap within
the car. Too great a matter lay before them to let
them remember incongruities.
"Gerald, my son," said Mrs. Ritchie, clearly.
"You are here!"
TTiis was her welcome to Gerald in words, but
she put her arms over his shoulders, as he dropped
on his knees before her, and smiled feebly at Mrs.
Leveritt.
"Leave us, please. Sylvia, stay," she said.
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"That Sylvia Is Excelling" 235
"Dortor, this is not as usual. Is it " Gerald
began as Mrs. Leveritt left the room.
"This is the last time," his mother answered
for the doctor, who confirmed her by a nod to
Gerald.
"Sylvia," said Mrs. Ritchie, speaking slowly but
quite clearly, "this is my ring, my betrothal ring.
Promise me that, by and by, when he is graduated,
you are ready, you will marry Gerald. Promise
it, Sylvia Belli I am dying. Let me die happy.
Take the ring."
"I can't; oh, I can't!" cried Sylvia, shrinking.
"You love Gerald," said the mother.
"No. I don't love any one but Father. I Hke
Gerald, like him ever so much, but I can't promise
thatl" Sylvia sobbed miserably.
"You are too young to know. It will be right;
you will be happy. There's no one like Gerald.
Promise, promise I How can you deny me this,
now?" cried the dying woman, taking Sylvia's hand.
"Oh, I prom I can't!" cried Sylvia.
Gerald arose to his feet. He had been over-
whelmed by this unexpected scene.
" Mother, you must not ask it. I did not know
Sylvia,, go, dear; go awayl"
Gerald gently, firmly, pulled Sylvia up on her
feet, took her by the shoulders and pushed her be-
fore him to the door. He opened it, thrust her
through it, and closed it behind him.
Sylvia, bent and choking with sobs, found Mrs.
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236 "Who Is Sylvia?"
Leveritt anxiously awaiting her; Sylvia dropped
into her loving arms.
"Aunt Helen, Aunt Helen I I have refused to
let a dying woman have her last drop of comfort!
I wouldn't promise! And now I almost could
promise for the beautiful thing Gerald has done in
sending me away, sparing me; and he is there alone I"
she sobbed.
"Thank Heaven, dearest! She had her heart
set on this, and did not realize the wrong she tried
to do! Thank Heaven, you have not promised!
It would have been wrong, horribly wrong! Such
a promise must not be given out of pity to the
dying but out of love for the living. If, later,
you give Gerald that promise for his own sake
Never mind, Sylvia, dearest child! It is cruelly
hard, but entirely right!" Mrs. Leveritt comforted
her.
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER XVI
"She Excels Each Mortal Thing"
TN A white skirt and middy blouse, with her
■*■ newly washed hair tied at her neck with a blue
ribbon, Sylvia, sitting on the upper step, curled
up with one foot under her so that her height was
not perceptible, looked minus three of her eighteen
years. In fact, she felt eighteen plus three years,
for sitting there, little-girl fashion, she had been
thinking long and serious thoughts.
Her reason for this place and position was that
O'Malley had been stoned into the yard by a pass-
ing boy, merely because there were stones at hand
and a dog to throw them at, and not from personal
animosity against O'Malley.
O'Malley's psychology did not make this clear to
him; his feelings were deeply hurt, and his mistress
had dropped down thus near to his level in order
to take his head in her lap, and with a palm on either
side of it, rub out from his brain his sense of injury.
"Yet you do know, Charles O'Malley, that it
is not your way to be meek under wrongs. You
are by nature a scrapper, my terrier. Own up.
You don't know that boy, and you don't really
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238 "fFko Is Sylvia r"
care much what he does, but you grieve over not
getting a chance to bite his legsl Vm sorry about
that myseif; he'd no reason to attack you. But
you might have been shot as a dangerous character,
if you had done it, so it's better as it is. It's an
unjust world, Dragoon-of-my-Heart, in which punish-
ment does not always fall on the guilty."
O'Malley took a closer hitch to Sylvia as she talked
to him, bringing not only his head but his shoulders
into her lap, heaving a great sigh as a bid for further
sympathy, which more than compensated the poseur
for his lost peace of mind — and not a stone had
struck him.
But that little piece of acting was wasted by
O'Malley. Cassandra came out and said:
"Miss Sylvia, Ruth Hapgood called. I couldn't
get all she said because that Mrs. Henderson — and
Hinderson's what I call her and it suits her betterl —
had her receiver down, listening in, as usuati But
whatever I lost don't matter much, for Ruth said
she was coming over."
"That's good, Cassie. I'd like to see her,"
said Sylvia. "It's rather empty when Father's
away. It doesn't seem as though he would be
back to-morrow. But he's having a beautiful time
seeing his scientific brethren ! It would be fun
to get Father to have this telephone Une taken
out and put in a private wire! Mrs. Henderson
would lose us as source of information! I'm told
she's particularly curious here, tool Yet it would
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"She Excels Each Mortal Thing" 239
be a shame; people who listen to other people's
telephone messages must be sadly in need of enter-
tainment! I was thinking, Cassie, if I feel lost
and lonely when Father's gone less than a week,
how must Gerald Ritchie feel, knowing his mother
cannot come back? And he has no one that really
belongs to him; and a young man left atone is so
much more helpless than a girl. A girl would have the
care of her house. Don't you think lonely women
often make a house stand for family?"
"I know it, but I don't see how you do," said
Cassandra. "On the other hand, he'll go back to
college and get taken up studying, and derive com-
fort from cutting up folks."
*'0h, Cassandra!" Sylvia was honestly shocked.
"I don't think you altogether like Gerald."
"Do, tool" declared Cassandra, with an obstinate
look. "Or I would 'f I didn't like Lloyd Hapgood
so well. You're sort of taken up with Gerald
Ritchie, and he's a fine boy. I'm willing to admit
that, older and all, he sort of outshines Lloyd. But
Lloyd's young, and he hasn't an ounce of conceit
to help him show off, though to my way of looking
at it, there's just about ten times as much to be
seen where 'tain't shown than where 'tis. Lloyd's
what I call real estate; solid investment, won't
run off, nor fail you."
"Yet real estate can depreciate in value. It
depends so much on what happens in the neighbour-
hood," said Sylvia, with a desire to tease Cassie.
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240 "fFho Is Sylvia?"
"However, Cassie, no one need defend Lloyd to
me. I always say that he is just Lloyd, and that
covers it. I'm as fond of him as I could be if his
last name was 'Bell'."
"Not the other way about?" Cassandra suggested.
Sylvia chose to ignore the suggestion. Instead
of answering it, she said:
"You always see stra^ht, and you brought me
up and know me better than any one else does,
Cassie. Do you think I am cruel not to have
given that promise to poor, dying Mrs. Ritchie?
I keep thinking and thinking about it, and I do
feel dreadfully. You see, I needn't have kept it
for a long time. Gerald has two years more in
medical college, then hospital time to put in, so
perhaps, before I had to face the consequences he*d
have seen someone he liked better, and no harm
would be done." Cassandra gave a short laugh.
"Sylvia," she said — and that showed that she
was profoundly interested, for she would never
accept her privilege of calling her charge by her
first name without its prefix — "Sylvia, you do seem
like a little girl, seen in one of those glasses that
pull a body out long and out of proportion! But
you're not such a silly as to ask seriously if you
ought to gjve such a promise as to marry any one,
trusting to luck to get out of keeping your word!
And whole volumes and 'tombs' as I've heard 'em
called, though why books should be called ^tombs'
I don't see, however solemn the subjects, couldn't
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"Shf Excels Each Mortal Thing" 241
tell you any plainer whether 'twould be right for
you to say you'd some day marry Gerald Ritchie
than you tell yourself when you hope, maybe, he'd
like someone else better I Girl alive, that's the
last thing in the list you could hope if you was
anywhere near to liking him enough!"
"That's true, Cassiel That is true!" cried
Sylvia, evidently relieved by the light thus shed
upon her darkness. "I've read such numbers of
stories, too. I ought to know how the heroine
walks the floor nights if the hero sees another girl
ever so far ofTl I'd be delighted if Gerald would
fall in love with Rutht And there's no way I
could praise him higher. I really didn't quite
want Jack Jarvis for her, though he is nice. I
didn't want her slighted for me, that was all. But
Gerald is good enough for any one, even for blessed
little Ruthikins."
"Suppose Lloyd liked Sally Meade, or someone,
best?" said Cassandra.
"That's different," said honest Sylvia after a
slight pause. "He couldn't, because he is Lloyd.
Being Lloyd means never changing, and Lloyd
and I were chums from the start."
" Chums 1 H'mt Here's Ruth," said Cassandra,
turning away.
"Sylvia, going out sailing?" asked Ruth, coming
up the steps. "Why are you sitting here?"
"I was going sailing; I dressed for it. O'Malley
has been asking me if I weren't going, but I had to
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241 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
disappoint him," said Sylvia. "I sat on the steps
to cuddle him after a bad boy stoned him, and
I was too lazy to get up. Cassie came out and talked
to me, so I just continued to sit. She told me
you called up to say you were coming over. Any-
thing on? Mercy, lend me your hand and pull,
Ruth I My foot is dead; IVe been sitting on it
so long!"
"The triumph of mind over matter!" observed
little Ruth as she pulled Sylvia to her feet by
the hands which she held up to her. Then, as
Sylvia clasped a piazza post and swayed around it,
holding up her numb foot from contact with the
floor, Ruth said:
"I want to talk to you about the proceeds of the
fete. We're rather uncertain. You see we cleared
more than we expected to make. Sally arranged
with Hermione, and we were to pay her three hun-
dred for training us. We have a little over five
hundred clear. What shall we do with it?"
"Don't bother about it; give it to Hermione,
she won't mind! Ruth, I'm crippled for life!"
cried Sylvia.
*'Yes, but Hermione is going to marry Jack Jar-
vis," Ruth reminded her. "It doesn't seem sen-
sible to hand over to her two thirds as much again
as she was to get, if she's to have the Jarvis fortune."
"Pay her three hundred, and buy her a wedding
present with the other two. Or a wedding present
for Enos Coffin and his Allimetta. Send it to a
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"She Excels Each Mortal Thing" 243
home for cripples — that appeals to me nowl"
Sylvia hopped about on one foot, gjngeriy trying
the returning circulation of the afflicted one by
putting it down and instantly drawing it up again.
"If the committee would agree I'll tell you ser-
iously what I'd like to see it used for," Sylvia cried.
"I'd like to see it spent for something nice for
Gabriel Gaby."
"Sylvia, he wouldn't take it," cried Ruth. "I'd
like that, too, if he would."
"Of course he wouldn't take it as a cash present,
but he would take a gift, bought and sent to him,
wrapped up in pretty words, telling him how every-
body respected and loved him. Gabriel has a
soft heart, susceptible to afFection. See if the rest
would think well of that," cried Sylvia, carried
away with the idea and the picture it painted before
her of the old man, whom she truly loved, beaming
with delight over his tribute.
"They won't mind; the rest, I mean. They
don't care who has the money as long as they had
the fun," said Ruth. "I love the ideal But, Sylvia,
what would you get him?"
"Nothing that he really needs," said Sylvia
promptly. "He has enough to live on in his own
funny little, clam-like way, and he gets most of
his wood on the beach, when the autumn winds and
tides blow in the drift. We Father sends him
things to eat; Cassie, or someone in our house,
cooks and takes him savoury little messes often.
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244 "^o I J Sylvia?"
Gabriel is stark mad about music. You know how
he makes his harmonica do unheard-of feats. I say
send him a small organ; six octaves would be
more than he'd ever need, an^l his shack is tiny.
But send him an organ) He would be the happiest
man on the coast, and on the opposite coast of
Great Britain I He'd play and sing when the storms
blew around him, and, when one of us dropped in
on him, we'd play to him. Oh, truly, Ruth, that
would be a great thing to do! He wants a clock
badly, too. If we can manage it, let's get a little
parlour organ and a clock for dear old Gaby!"
"Sylvia, what is the reason you beat us as you
do?" Ruth beamed on the girl for whom she felt
a sort of adoration. "We were racking our brains,
and we couldn't hit on an idea that any one really
liked, not even the person suggesting it! So Sally
Meade said: 'Go ask Sylvia what she thinks; she'll
hit on some peachy thing that no one else would
ever see'. You seem to feel what will set people
up rather than to think of it! I wonder whyF"
"Oh, Ruth, for goodness' sakel I don't know!
How can I know when it isn't so? And besides, if
it were, who knows Gabriel Gaby as I do, of you
all? Wasn't he my sailing teacher, my harmonica
music-master, and my philosopher and friend?
'Course I'd think of him! We're intimate friends,"
cried Sylvia, impatiently. "You'd ruin me if I
didn't have a wee bit of sense! I'd be hke that
woman George Ade wrote of, whose shirtwaist
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"She Excels Each Mortal Thing" 145
was all over pinholes from the medals that had
been pinned on it — only she pinned on her own
medals I Two hundred is not much for an organ,
but a little one — and not too magnificent F Per-
haps we can! I wonder if Baj^ide might have
one second-hand? The sort of parlour organ I
mean, worked by pedals, would be likely to be
sold second-hand, I'd think! Only people like Gabriel
would want one; he'd love it madly!"
"We'll get Lloyd to drive us over," declared
Ruth. "Or— or— Gerald, Sylvia?"
"His car is a touring car; Lloyd's a roadster.
Sally ought to go." Sylvia refused to hear Ruth's
implication. "What does Hermione say? About
everything, you know? It is a surprise! You
don't mind the Jarvis millions ? It is hard on nice
old Jack to speak only of his money; he was rightl"
"I mind I They never came anywhere near me I"
cried Ruth. "Do you mind?"
"/ mind? I never once thought of it in that
wayl" cried Sylvia, and they both laughed.
"Hermione doesn't say much. She looks per-
fectly happy. I'm sure she doesn't think first
of the millions," Ruth then answered. "Jack is
perfectly happy, too. We'll have a magnificent
wedding in Paxton, because here's where it happened ;
such a wedding as this town never saw, at Christmas.
I shall come back for it. The New York part of
the affair will be here, of course. You'll see Jack's
sister Peggy, Sylvia, but it will be too late! I
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«46 "ff^ho Is Sylvia?"
know you're to be asked to be maid of honour, and
I'll be a bridesmaid, with half a dozen more — dear
me! Talk about glory and fun I Oh, me I"
"Luscious!" cried Sylvia, gleefully, too thoroughly
a girl not to smack her lips over this coming feast.
"It may not be so bad to be grown up, after all, in
winter! In summer that sort of good time wouldn't
be so good, but in winter, when The Walloping
Window Blind is pulled up and covered, and all
the rest of the boats, too, then a grand wedding
will come in fine. Ruth, I never saw one! You may
have, at your home, but I never did I"
"I never did, either, except pretty weddings j
nothing magniBcent. And I never took part in
one, never!" declared Ruth.
"Then it isn't true that you are a widow?"
cried Sylvia, with amazement considerably exag-
gerated.
She caught little Ruth's hand, tucked it through
her arm, and began to parade the piazza, bending
down toward Ruth with an air of complete devotion,
and both girls sang the "Bridal March" from Lohen-
grin through closed teeth, fondly believing it sounded
a Httle like a pipe organ.
"Sylvia, we are losing our minds!" declared
Ruth, stopping their nonsensical march.
"Ruthie, we had none to lose!" retorted Sylvia.
"Come upstairs and make yourself pretty, and
let us lay our plan before the committee, and then
get one of the boys to drive us over to Baytide
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• "She Excels Each Mortal Thing" 247
to stalk an organ and a clockl That is, if they
approve, but I know they will. If the organ costs
two hundred, we'll all chip in to buy the clock,
anyway. Your father is away; come and lunch
with us. Aunt Helen grumbles all the time that
we can hardly catch a gHmpse of you nowadays."
Ruth turned toward the house as she spoke, and
Sylvia docilely followed her, O'Malley bringing
up the rear with a downcast air, knowing that his
hope of a sail, called into being by Sylvia's middy
blouse and duck skirt, was dashed for the morning.
"It's a grand and glorious plan, Captain Sylvial"
declared Sally Meade when she had heard the sug-
gestion for the use of the unexpected funds.
"Take me to Baytide with you! We want to
get our three hundred for Hermione in gold. And
we want to have a jollification to present it to her,
and celebrate her engagement. Say, wasn't that
a surprise, though! Here were we plotting to help
Hermione stand for her principles and perceptions,
against Maida's lack of these valuable possessions,
and by and by we shall all contrive to speak care-
lessly of knowing well Mrs. Jack — ^John Jarvis, and
be hoping she'll invite us to her box at the opera!
Virtue wasn't its own reward this time; there's
a lot more to it, but it's come out on top, that's
sure!"
"It's a nice fairy-tale ending," said Sylvia.
"Not a grim tale?" hinted Sally, but Sylvia
and Ruth practised upon her their method of pun-
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248 "fflto It Syhiaf"
ishment which they called "ignoring." It con-
sisted of a haughty turning away of the up-tilted
head, and a baleful stare of contempt straight into
the punster's eyes. It was anything but ignoring;
it clearly conveyed the enormity of a pun.
Sylvia and Ruth went to Mrs. Leveritt's, leaving
Sally with the understanding that they were to
pick her up to drive to Baytide at half-past two.
In the meantime, Sally was to see the other four
girls of their committee, and if there were any ob-
jection to the plan of a gift for Gabriel Gaby she
was to telephone to Mrs. Leveritt's to say so.
"I can't take you all," said Lloyd, mournfully.
"Why did I choose a roadster? I had my choice;
Father told me to take whatever I wanted in that
line. What a chump I was! Yet it has advantages
at times! I'll hire a car, a touring, same make,
and then you can all go. Aunt Helen, too."
"We want to ask Gerald Ritchie to drive us,
Lloyd," said Sylvia, somehow feeling the explanation
incumbent upon her. "He needs to get out. He
might not go for pleasure, but he will go to
take us."
"If you want him, of course, Sylvia," said Lloyd,
stiffly. Then his natural kindness asserted itself;
he was ashamed of being churlish.
"Right you are, as usual. Captain Sylvial" he
said, heartily. "Poor old doc is having a hard
time. He looks finished. There's no one there
with him but the two servants. It seems he hasn't
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"She Excels Each Mortal Thing" 249
so much as an aunt, and though we know what
aunts are, don't we, Sylvia?" — Lloyd frowningly
shook his head toward his beloved Aunt Helen to
signify what a trial an aunt might be — "though
we know aunts are hard to endure, still it would
be something to have one, when you're left like
Gerald. He's arranging to close the house when
he goes to college, and that makes it worse. A
shut-up house ts the gloomiest thing this side of
the Styx. Call up Gerald, and put it to him strong
that we need him to help us out."
"You, Ruth!" said Sylvia, with a smile for .
Lloyd that was sufficient reward. Ruth called
up Gerald, and got so speedy an answer that it
showed him at hand when the bell rang, and she
said:
"Gerald, are you too busy to be charitable this
afternoon? We want to go to Baytide, Sylvia,
Sally, Lloyd, and I, to invest the proceeds of the
fete. We have no car: would you take us? Bless
you! I knew you would and Hold the wire,
Gerald! Aunty, shall I get him here to lunch
with us, poor boy?" asked Ruth, turning back to
the room, her hand over the mouth of the instru-
ment.
"Gerald," Ruth resumed when Mrs. Leveritt
had said a hearty Yes, "are you there? We are
going to take lunch here, at Aunt Helen's. Please
bring the car around and lunch with us, then we can
Stan right away afterward. . . . Nonsensel Just
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250 "ffko Is Sylvia f"
ourselves and Sylvia! . . . That's right, Gerald I
Surely we want you! . . . Indeed you're not a
Itilljoy, ever! Besides, we are only going to eat infor-
mally, just as always at home, and then go on a
charitable errand! There's no question of a frolic.
Good-bye! Thanks, Gerald!"
Gerald came. He was thinner, pale, his eyes
cloudy, Sylvia thought. She had not seen him,
except at the funeral, since the night his mother had
died, the night when, but a short time before her
death, Gerald had danced the Endymion role to her
Diana.
The effort that everyone made at first to be
natural made the three young people constrained and
unnatural. Mrs. Leveritt, only, could be her natural
sweet self, for she was old enough to be Gerald's
mother, and there was nothing to restrain her impulse
to treat him with the affectionate pity that she felt
for him in the loss of his mother. Sylvia could not
forget that she had refused Gerald's dying mother
her heart's desire, nor that this must be equally
Gerald's heart's desire.
Ruth and Lloyd were embarrassed by the compli-
cation of many emotions connected with Gerald, and
also by their inexperience in dealing with grief.
There is a great disadvantage in feeling a strong
sympathy when one is too young to know what to
do with it.
Gerald, however, did not allow himself long to be
a burden upon his friends. He threw aside his
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"She Excels Each Mortal Thing" 251
sorrow and made his entertainment easy for Ruth
and Lloyd, even, which was harder, for Sylvia.
Mrs. Leveritt, watching him, felt herself go out to
Gerald with great hking for his unselfishness.
The party for Baytide got off in good time, stopped
for Sally Meade, and were off, spinning down the
perfect level road at a speed just enough beyond the
limit to add interest to the progress.
They found in Baytide a small organ for which the
music dealer, who had taken it in part payment for a
piano, acted apologetic when he said that he "must
ask them eighty-five dollars, times bein' what they
were." It was a pleasant-toned little instrument,
better than the average, and the red felt background
for its machine-turned ornamentations was unfaded.
They also found a clock that Sylvia recognized the
moment that she set her eyes upon it as the clock-
afiinity of Gabriel Gaby's soul. It was a clock that
hung on the wall; that struck the half hours, and
chimed the hours on four bells; which had a clear
face, with unmistakable Roman numbers, and an
expression that was a guarantee of character. For
this clock the dealer asked thirty-five dollars, which
the committee willingly paid, and with no slight
satisfaction put the clock in its box in the car.
"We have eighty dollars left!" cried Sally Meade.
"I^t's get a rug for Gabriel, as bright coloured and as
large as our money affords."
This they found to be an Axminster, eight by
eight feet square, which in Gabriel's room would
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252 "Who Is Sylvia t"
cover all the floor that was visible beyond his furni-
ture. With five dollars, still unused, they bought a
coloured print of a ship magnificently surmounting
waves of the highest sort.
"I think dear old Gabriel will almost die of joyi"
cried Sylvia, delighted with this last purchase, her
own su^estion.
A truck was to bring the organ and the rug over to
Paxton the next day, and the five young people,
refreshed with Baytide's special brand of sundaes,
started back to where they had left Gerald's car.
It all happened in an instant. Sylvia started to
cross the street ahead of the rest. She slipped on a
spot on the asphalt pavement wet with oil, and went
down as a motor truck passed over her.
"Sylvia!"
It was Sally Meade, only, who could speak. Ruth
crumpled up on the sidewalk without a sound.
Gerald and Lloyd threw up their hands, and Gerald
darted forward. Lloyd, his hands covering his eyes,
groped his way after him.
There was the instantaneous crowd around Sylvia
that an accident seems to evoke, but it let the boys
through, recognizing by their anguish that Sylvia was,
in some way, theirs.
Together they dropped on their knees beside her,
and Gerald lifted her slightly. "Sylvia!" Lloyd
spoke her name.
Sylvia opened her eyes and smiled at him, then at
Gerald.
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"She Excels Each Mortal Thing" 253
"I thought I was dead. I do not believe I am
hurt," she said.
It was true. By almost a miracle the great truck,
which would have crushed her, had spanned Sylvia's
body as she fell, and there was not a mark upon her
delicate skin to show that she had escaped a horrible
death by a margin so slender that it could not be
expressed.
The two boys helped Her to her feet; her masses of
dark hair fell around her, jarred down in her fall.
She was white to her lips, but she laughed bravely, if
tremulously, and waved her hand to Sally.
"What a girl!" "Suppose she'd have been killedl"
"Isn't she beautiful?" murmured the crowd, falling
back with joy on every face.
"It's Sylvia Bell of Faxton, the one they call
Captain Sylvia I There's not her equal anywhere,"
said someone as Sylvia gained the sidewalk.
Ruth was in worse state than Sylvia. Gerald
went after the car and took the girls in from where
they were. They drove home in silence. What
could be said i
But as they stopped at the Bell house, and Ruth,
who was to stay with her, got out wjth Sylvia,
Gerald said: "At least it has shown me that I had
not fully learned to be unhappy."
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER XVII
"Upon This Dull Earth Dwelling"
'\J'R. BELL returned unexpectedly the same day
•^ ■*■ upon which the purchasing committee had
driven to Baytide.
Sylvia was alone on the piazza with O'Malley
when he came. The realization of her danger that
afternoon, and how, in a brief moment, she would
have been hurled from her joyous, vivid youth into
a horrible death, had been increasing with the passing
hours. Most of all, she thought of how her father
would have been summoned by telegram and would
have come home to find only the crushed, broken
body that had been his girl. The imagination of his
anguish in that desolation gripped her so strongly
that she hardly remembered the personal effect of the
tragedy, had it befallen, upon herself.
"I should not have been here. I should be dead!
Sylvia Bell dead! Why, how strange! But, oh.
Father, Father! How could he have come into this
empty house I" she thought. Then looking up she
saw her father, coming unexpectedly in at the gate;
he had arrived on the last train from Boston.
She leaped to meet him with a cry that startled
him, and clung to him, laughing and crying.
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"Upon This Dull Earth Dwelling" 255
"Father, Father, my dearest! Oh, I'm so glad,
glad to see you! So glad you're seeing me I" she
cried.
"Sylvia, what has happened?" asked Mr. Bell,
setting down his bag and taking the largest piazza
chair.
Sylvia dropped down upon its arm and laid her
cheek on her father's head, his arm encircling' her.
"You might not have found me here. I came near,
nearer than near, to fail ofwaiting for you!" she said.
Then she told him what had happened that after-
noon. Mr. Bell did not speak. He turned and
gathered Sylvia into his arms, drawing her tight to his
breast as if she had been a child, and like a little child
she clung to him speechlessly, like a child that has
been taken up out of a nightmare in the dark and
carried into light, into the safety of loving arms.
"There's no word but: Thank God!" Mr. Bell
broke a long silence by saying. "We'll have to be
good, my Sylvia, after this!"
"That's what I've been thinking. Father," Sylvia
laughed tremulously. "I've been thinking you and
I must give up all our bad habits, by way of thanks-
giving. Only I wasn't sure My strongest habits
are you, O'Malley, and the catboat. I don't be-
lieve I must give up these ? And your strongest bad
habits are me and the laboratory! Father, we seem
to be quite nice, already, when we take an inventory,
don't we?"
"One of us does," said Mr. Bell, tightening his hold
3.n.iiffid by Google
256 "Who Is. Sylvia r"
on his treasure. *' Don't give up me and O'Malley;
we'd both sufFerl And don't give up The Walloping
Window Blind, because you'd suffer! I think the
best thing is to keep straight on in your old way.
After all, it is a way sufficiently approved to have
made you preserved to mel"
"With a sharp look out to improve upon it,"
Sylvia amended the arrangement. "Father, since
I am here, alive, I'd better see that you don't starve
to deathi What about a nice, cozy httle supper?
We didn't expect you; we'd planned to have several
truly luscious things for you to-morrow night, but I
know there are two pleasant, cold, soft-shell crabs,
which will be agreeable, though cold, and new bread,
and a two-story cake, and some peaches, and I'll
make coffee in a jiffy. Cassie is out, sO is Norah.
Roseleen went to Aunt Helen this afternoon, to live
there."
"Ihavehad supper, Lady Bountiful," said Mr. Bell.
"Yours sounds as though having had another was
a misfortune. You've made me hungry all over
again!" he added, seeing Sylvia's look of disappoint-
ment, knowing how dearly she loved to prepare him
food. "Suppose I forget the other! I'd be made
happy with all those delectable viands, if you have
nothing better to do than to get supper for me."
"There's nothing in the world better to dol" cried
Sylvia, jumping up with a quick little kiss that was
aimed at her father's cheek, but lighted on his ear.
"I'm perfectly happy when I'm seeing you eat any-
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"Upon This Dull. Earth Dwelling" 257
thing I get ready, dearest poky Scientist! You
must tell me all about the other poky scientists, and
what they said to you, and what you answered back
— all saucy-like I And what you're going to do next,
and whether you saw a nicer, taller, better-looking
girl, whom you liked better than your foolish Sylvia,
and — and — everything! That will be after the
crabs, and while you sip the coffee I I've nothing to
do to-night; I forgot to say. I thought they'd be
here asking if I was still up and doing, but they're
not — ^thank goodness!"
"They?" inquired Mr. Bell.
"Ruth and Sally, Gerald and Lloyd, who were
with me," explained Sylvia. " Fatherums, you don't
know how I like to be at home like this, nobody com-
ing; just ourselves, and I getting your supper!"
"I see that is trae," said Mr. Bell. "That's
another thing for which to be grateful to the extent
of feeling obliged to be good. There's time enough
for anything more to intrude, I don't believe I'm
criminally selfish."
"There isn't anything more. How can one be
more than perfectly, blissfully happy? I'd like to
keep right on as I am for another eighteen years I"
cried Sylvia, darting through the pantry door into
the kitchen, snatching down an enveloping bungalow
apron as she ran and throwing it over her head; it
was indeed a happy face that emerged through it
and turned upon Mr. Bell.
But Mr. Bell shook his head dubiously.
3.n.iiffid by Google
258 "fHio Is Sylvia?"
"Thirty-six! Oh, I'm not so sure of that! You'd
be twice eighteen then, Sylvia, and that's the sere and
yellow leaf," he said.
"FufF!" cried Sylvia. "Gabriel Gaby's sixty-six
and he's not in the sere, nor yellow; he's in the green
leaf] He's younger than any one. I'm sure some-
body tacked the wrong initial on him; that he's
Gabriel Baby, not Gaby! He's a sort of strayed,
salt-water cherub, little round Gabriell Father,
we've bought him an organ, a clock, a rug, and a
picture, high colours, ship in full sail. I'm sure he'll
weep for joy and dry his eyes on Mate. She won't
mind! She's used to salty dampness, that cat!"
Sylvia bustled about,humming as sheworked,tumed
on the flame of the gas stove for the cofl^ee, got butter,
the cold crabs, and fruit from the refrigerator; spread
the end of the dining table with sundry doilies; got
out the necessary plates, a cup and saucer, the silver,
singing and chattering to her father as she hurried
his supper, choosing to rosh it, under the pleasing
Action that he was sufl^ering pangs of hunger while he
watched her.
Truth to tell, Mr. Bell did discover an appetite as
he watched Sylvia fly about and caught whifi^s of the
peaches she was cutting up, the bubbling cofi"ee which
she prided herself upon making, "as well as a French
woman," she told him.
"How she loves the homely, intimate things, this
beautiful young Diana!" thought her father. "How
little spoiled she is by praise and admiration! I
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"Upon This Dull Earth Duelling" 259
doubt she fully realizes that her crystal purity, her
fine scorn of all that is not fine, even this womanly,
domestic side of her, are the inEuence they are upon
her comrades. What have I done to deserve this
girl of mine? At home in the clouds, and at home on
the dull brown earth; that's Sylvia,"
But instead of voicing his thoughts, he said:
"If you don't hurry, Sylvia, I'll forget everything
that happened to me on my trip, and youll never
know what the scientists said to me, nor what I
answered back!"
"You ungrateful Clement Bell! Am I not getting
supper so fast that I expected you to think I was
Titania, with Puck helping her, instead of Sylvia F
Come, then, starving father, and see that you don't
leave so much as one grain of sugar."
Sylvia took her own place at the head of the table
to gloat over her father eating. Since she was not
eating, she permitted herself to rest her elbows on
the table, framing her flushed face in the support of
both her palms. She looked warm, but entirely
happy, her eyes shining with the unspeakable delight
of a true woman who is supplying the need of food to
the Dearest Man.
Mr. Bell looked across at her, and the sudden
realization of how that lovely young face might
have looked at that moment if the heavy truck had
not missed her between its wheels sent the blood back
against his heart, which stopped for a few beats,
making him dizzy. But he drove away the horror of
3.n.iiffid by Google
26o "Who Is Sylvia?"
that thought, turning with all his force to enjoyment
of his great happiness, so nearly turned into incurable
grief.
With Sylvia listening, eyes and ears and pride in
him all active, Mr. Bell told her where he had been,
whom he had seen, what had been said to him of
the probable result of his contribution to scientific
knowledge.
"I have the first proofs of the pamphlet in my
bag. Assistant. We'll go over them together. And
I'm going to take a vacation from further laboratory
work for a while, perhaps a good while. I shall
accomplish more for letting myself unconsciously
mature in my mind another idea that is half formed.
What would you say to going abroad this autumn?
Say in October?" Mr. Bell ended.
"Oh, of course I want to go! Yes, I more than
want to go!" said Sylvia, slowly. "But — it is dear
at home! And I could learn more about cathedrals
and galleries; I'm not so particularly up on them!
Wouldn't you like better to get a car, let me learn to
drive it, take Ruth and Cassie and drive to Colorado,
or California? Or both to California and Colorado?
Then we could take O'Malley easily; he'd die if we
went abroad and left him!"
"I truly believe that is the real ground of your
preference!" cried Mr. Bell.
"He would, literally, die I" persisted Sylvia.
"Not the least doubt of that. And it does seem a
shame to let a perfectly good, devoted Irish Dragoon,
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"Upon This Dull Earth Dwelling" 261
like O'Malley, pine to death. I couldn't enjoy any-
thing that cost such a friend as O'Malley! And,
truly, I'd be perfectly wild with joy driving across
the continenti I can't sail in winter, you see, Father,
and that would be nearly as much fun. And we'd
take Ruth, wouldn't we?"
" 'See America first', the slogan?" suggested Mr.
Bell. "Also O'Malley go bragh? I must say, I
couldn't sentence that dog to heartbreak! All right,
Sylvia. I am entirely ready to agree to your
substitution. There is plenty of time for Europe — I
only fear there may not be plenty of Europe for the
time; things are not encouraging over there. Of
course we'd take Ruth!"
"Wasn't that easy to settle?" cried Sylvia, sur-
prised. "1 think we ought to put that through.
I'm afraid I'll want to settle down at home when the
rime comes, be content to drive no farther than
Boston. I'm quite a setthng-down person, Mr. Bell
— for a person that's never still. I'm afraid I
ought to be ashamed!"
"Not of contentment, and love of home, Lady of
the House!" said Mr. Bell, positively. "Now, I've
done almost what you told me to, and I'd not have
left the grains of sugar, if I didn't drink my coffee
black. Do you clear away, or leave it for Norah?"
"I'll -set the butter back into the refrigerator, and
I'll pile the plates in the pantry sink. I wouldn't
like to come in at bedtime to find a cluttered table, if
I were Norah, and it's fair to put yourself in her
3.n.iiffid by Google
262 "fFko Is Bylvia?"
place, Isn't it? Besides, Cassie has a little tiger cat
out here who came to us, and who doesn't mind
O'Malley; I suspect because she needs a home too
badly not to risk a terrier. I'm going to put these
crab remains out for her," said Sylvia, carrying out
much of her design as she talked.
"Consideration for your maid and the little
beasties. That's right, Sylvia. The merciful ob-
tain mercy. Perhaps the kindnesses you're fond of
doing, dear, stood between you and the wheels of the
truck to-day," said her father.
"I'm not especially kind, Father. I like everything
and everybody to be safe and happy, though,"
Sylvia said, putting her hand into her father's arm
to return to the piazza.
In the afternoon of the next day the Grecian
Committee, as it amused them to call themselves,
was to assemble on the beach and go in a body to
Gabriel Gaby's shack, escorting the Baytide truck
when it came over with his pfts.
It required patient management to combine the
comminee with the truck, and, waiting for the truck
to appear, the committee grew nervously afraid that
Gabriel would sUp through their fingers.
"He doesn't go out often these days, I know," said
Sally Meade, "but it would be just the luck if he
chose to-day to sail to the Isle of Shoals. Or he
might go out to the lobster catch. Sylvia, you go
ahead and hold him in your charm till we get there.
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"Upon This pull Earth Dtoelling" 263
Don't you give him a hint, but if he tries to go out
give him a blow; lay him out senseless and then
drag him into the shack and shut the door! What-
ever you have to do to him to keep him in, short of
murder, do it! Trot along, dear Captain Sylvia;
you're Gaby's prime favourite, anyway, so go down
and secure him for the presentation."
"All right; I'll go, but 1 haven't found Gabriel
out this summerl" Sylvia said, starting off.
"Be sure he doesn't find you out I About the
coming event!" warned Sally.
"Do I let secrets slip?" demanded Sylvia, and was
gone.
She found Gabriel Gaby and Mate, just as she
expected to find them, sunning themselves; the
smaller of the pair frankly dozing, the larger one
pretending to be awake whittling, but actually nod-
ding considerably, with frequent lapses into a doze.
"Ah, there, Sylviel" cried Gabriel, arousing and
making a deep gouge in his piece of pine wood as he
jerked himself upright. "I declare, I was that
int'rested in my work you made me jump, an' I cut
her too deep!"
"Gabriel Gaby, truth is mighty and it prevails!
You know you were napping, like Mate, but she
doesn't mind owning up!" Sylvia reproached him.
"What are you making?"
"A submarine for a little chap down to the hotel.
'Cutest little chap you'd ask to see! Hair's bright's
the newest twenty-dollar gold piece, an' full's nice a
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264 "fFko Is Syhia?"
colour; curls all over his head, 'specially when he's
been in the water. Asked me 'f I couldn't carve
him a submarine. Says I : 'Surest thing you know,
only 'twon't be anything but a United States Navy
boat'. Says he: 'What'd you think I am; a traitor?'
Traitor, mind you! Must be six, I guess. So he's
goin' to git his submarine, solely for his country's
service! I'm goin' to cut it's good's 1 can."
Gabriel Gaby fell to work in earnest after this
explanation, fully awake.
"I wish you'd put that up for a while, and play
to me on your harmonica," said Sylvia. "I have a
desire for it that can't wait. The little chap's so
much younger than I am that he can better afford to
wait for his submarine than I can for my music!"
"Land sakes, Sylvie, 'tain't sol You're less'n
six! You're the same little kid you was at four when
I used to play for you. Such nonsense 1 You'n'
my harmonicuml" Gabriel Gaby grumbled, but
he laid aside his whittling and produced his har-
monica from his pocket, shaking the loose tobacco
out of it, as Sylvia remembered that he always did,
and looking highly flattered by her request.
Gabriel Gaby played his unpromising instrument
skilfully; Sylvia sincerely enjoyed it, not precisely
on her musical side, perhaps, but with her sense of
time, and by no means without her sense of humour.
Gabriel was ecstatically performing, his eyes shut,
his head back, one foot flapping to mark the
time, tipped upright, its heel dug into the sand.
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"Upon This Dull Earth Dwelling" 265
when, just as he had reached the chorus of '*Nancy
Lee," and was wordlessly declaring on the harmonica
that "A sailor's wife a sailor's star should be," Sylvia
cried out, apparently surprised: "Gabriel, there's
a procession coming down the beach 1 An auto-
truck and people walking. They look like — they
arel Ruth, Sally Meade — girls and boys of Paxtonl"
"Want to knowl" Gabriel managed to ejaculate
out of one comer of his mouth, not wishing to be so
rude as to ignore Sylvia's information, but too
thoroughly an artist to feel interest for the moment
in anjrthing beyond his tune.
"Gabriel, do lookl" cried Sylvia.
Gabriel finished the final "Yo-ho!" of his air with
a triumphant landing full in the middle of its high
note, held the note, and ran down an octave for good
measure, trilled awhile on the octave below the
highest note, removed his harmonica from his lips,
opened his eyes, drained the instrument, and ex-
claimed: "There!" with indescribable satisfaction.
Then he said: "Now what's botherin' you, Sylvie?
Well, I declare, quite a number of our youthful feller
citizens of both, in fact of all the sexes 'pear to be
steerin' this way! Wonder what under the canopy's
bringin* 'em in a body, so to speak?" The "youth-
ful feller citizens" halted before Gabriel and Sylvia:
Mate retreated to within the shack. The truck, with
the organ wrapped in burlap, also halted.
"Gabriel Gaby," said Lloyd, stepping forward,
"your friends and mine here have told me I had to
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266 "ffko Is Sylvia?"
speak a piece at you for them. I'm supposed to
explain in beautiful language — English language,
but of the better class!— what's up. But I don't
seem to see it. I'm di^ng at dead languages in
college, yet I don't seem to have one bud of flowery
English. The fact of the matter is we had too much
money left from our Grecian high jinks. We didn't
know what to do with it, couldn't divvy it up,
because it wasn't ours to have and to hold; didn't
know what to do. Then the girl that you love best,
Captain Sylvia, suggested that this superfluity gave
us a chance to do what we'd all like to do, show you
what a lot we thought of you. So we blew in our
unsinkable fund in souvenirs from Baytide. They're
in that truck, all but two, and those we have here.
Now don't be dismayed! We — or Sylvia did —
thought you'd find them useful when the wintry
winds blow o'er your shack and give you shivers
down your back! Hurrah for Gabriel Gaby I"
Lloyd led his own proposed cheers; they were an
inspiration. It would have been hard to say how
Gabriel was going to take his announcement, but the
cheers swept away what might have developed into
annoyance.
Before they had fairly died out the truck driver
and his companion had the burlap off the organ, and
were drawing it forward on the truck. To do this
the rug first had to be thrown out; the rope that held
it broke, and it unrolled, displaying its full brilliance,
on the sand.
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"Upon This Dull Earth Dwelling" 267
"Where'll we set it?" asked the man with the or-
gan balancing against his shoulders,
"Inside," said Gabriel Gaby, mechanically.
Then, as the men with the Uttle organ went into
the shack, Gabriel partly recovered from his stunned
condition.
"Sylvie, will you see to it where they put it?"
he asked. "There ain't room 'less things are
shifted."
"Never mind where they put it; we'll straighten
up," said Lloyd. "Sylvia thought you'd like to
play and sing in the winter evenings, and she'll
play and sing for you. Now, here is your clock,
Gabriel, and a picture."
"I'll pass right out!" said Gabriel Gaby, staring
at the clock. "I'd of g^ven my head to dare to
hope for such a clock as that! The comp'ny they
aret And useful I Nobody needs a clock's much '5
the man that never has any need for time, 'cause
he doesn't go anywheres partic'lar. He's the one
that gits the full good 'f a clock, which 's the comp'ny
they are. I always did think it didn't make so much
difference what a clock said about the time it was, 's
did the way it said it, tickin' an' strikin' when you're
alone. Ladies an' gentlemen," said Gabriel, sud-
denly arousing to the ceremonial obligations of the
occasion. "If 1 was to talk till the flood come back
to cover the earth, which we know won't never be,
I couldn't say what I'm feelin', knowin', also, that
I'll feel more 'n' more, the further I go in considerin'
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268 "fFho Is SylviaV*
what you've done. I do wish an' hope you'll do
one thing more, an' let yourself know the extent o'
my appreciation, an' gratitood, fer I can't."
"Hear, hear!" cried Gerald Ritchie. "Gabriel,
dear old Gabie Gaby — remember we boys used to
call you that ? — ^we've had more fun out of it than you
will have, I am afraid. It was Sylvia Bell who sug-
gested it, and told us what to get for you."
"Oh, well, Sylviel I know all about Captain
Sylviel" said Gabriel, significantly.
Sylvia came out of the shack in time to hear this.
"Indeed you don't! But don't tell the dreadful
things you do knowl" she cried. "The organ is in
there, Gabriel, but you'll have to decide where to
put it. I'll be down to-morrow morning, and well
try it."
The committee turned to go, Sally took Sylvia's
arm and drew her along with her.
Ruth ran after them and seized Sylvia's other arm.
"My Sylvial" she cried. "No fair, Sally Meadel"
"I guess I saw her first 1" cried Sally, and the three
went off down the beach, tall Sylvia in the middle.
Gerald lingered. He followed Gabriel Gaby into
the shack, opened the organ, and softly tried it where
it stood, out of place, on the floor of the crowded little
room.
"You'll get it in after you've shifted things a bit,"
said Gerald, pumping with one foot and playing
harmonies. "It's a good tone; we heard it in Bay-
tide. Gabriel, tell me; you know Sylvia pretty well.
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"Upon This Dull Earth Dwelling" 269
Do you think it would be the least use if I tried ?
Do you think she cares one bit for me, compared —
compared to her boat?*'
"Gerald Ritchie, if you want the truth, no; 1
don't think 'twould be the least bit o' use," said
Gabriel Gaby. "I think she likes you, but I don't
think our girl's like the heft of 'em. She's got the
happy, innocent heart in her of a little child, an'
she's flyin' in the sunshine o' her youth, much like
the gull yonder in the act'yal sunshine. Sylvie's
as free's air, an' 's clear 's crystal. Her father's all
she wants — an' her dog. 'Twouldn't be the least
mite o' use, 'f you ask me!"
"I want her," said Gerald, turning away.
"You'd be a dunce not to," said Gabriel Gaby.
"Best on earth, she isl"
3.n.iiffid by Google
CHAPTER XVIII
"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring"
TT WAS September, with thirteen of its days
^ left behind; ahnost half the month had slipped
away. A strong wind was blowing, due west, racing
over the dune tops, clean of earthly inperfections,
ozone-charged, a rollicking, racing, high-spirited
wind that tilled mere mortals with its joyousness.
Sylvia Bell, who was at all times akin to this free,
glad wind, especially yielded to it. She started out
immediately after breakfast to run across the dunes
with O'Malley, head up, eyes bright, lips parted,
eager and intensely alive.
The terrier also found the day inspiriting. Leap-
ing and running at imaginary game, O'Malley rushed
ahead of Sylvia, stopping to worry the sticks tossed
by the wind in his path, or bringing one back to
Sylvia to be thrown for him, pretending to be ex-
cited over them, and making a great to-do about
finding them though the wind was too strong to
allow Sylvia to send them far.
"Oh, dognaf-the-world, you make believe as much
as I dol" cried Sylvia, laughing at O'Malley's pre-
tense of great doings. "Imagination and honour.
That's not a bad outfit for a silly terrier brain. "
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 271
She ran headlong down the steep dune path and
across the sands to Gabriel Gaby's shack.
"Isn'titaday?" sheened in lieu of "good morning."
"I thought perhaps you'd like to have me play
'Glory Hallelujah' for you. It feels like thati"
"Well, to tell the truth, Sylvie, I was sort of wishin'
I could make that organ shout," Gabriel admitted.
"The nearest 1 can come to pickin' out a triumphal
tune is 'My Country Tis of Thee.' And I always
did feel that was a naytional hymn that sounded
's if you'd full as lieves be bom somewhere else.
Sort o' serious, 'specially when it's sung with ex-
pression. Most folks think it's singin' with feelin'
to drag an' slur a tune like sin."
Sylvia laughed, enjoying this criticism.
"I'll play things as gay as I can. It's hard to be
gay on a foot-pedalling oigan, but I know some
marches that are not out of key with a westerly
wind like this."
"Wait a minute, Sylvie; wait a minute before you
go inside," said Gabriel Gaby.
"It's nice out here. I was just sayin' to Mate
that for all it's such a glorious day there's a leetle
mite o' sense o' the solemn in it. The season's
about bu'st up. Ain't many left in the hotel. The
little chap 1 whittled out the submarine for, he
went yest'day. Sort o' solemn when seasons end,
if you've lived's many summers — ^not to speak o'
the winters which are longer — 's I have."
"Nonsense, Gabriell You're far more out of
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27* "fFho Is Sylvia?"
key than the most melancholy tune! Why, it's
a great day, and you're the youngest person I know —
except myself, and O'Malleyl If our season is
over, the Berkshire season is just coming on.
Lots of these people go on to the mountains. To
tell the trujth, I don't mind the birds of passage
flitting. I like Paxton best when we have it to
our own Paxton selves." Sylvia patted Gabriel
on the arm to infuse him with jollity. "And you
will be cozy this winter with the warm rug and
the sociable organ, now won't youf"
"I shall, Sylvie," said Gabriel. "I shall be.
Mate 'n' I'll live high ! That wa'n't meant for rhym-
in', but let it stand ! I guess you won't get a chance
to whoop it up for the west wind, an' the fine day
on the organ, Sylvie. I see Jack Jarvis comin'."
"Oh, Sylvia!" cried Jack, his face lighting up as
he saw her. "I was going to your house. Are
you going home?"
"Yes," Sylvia spoke doubtfully, but reinforced
her assent. "Yes, Jack; I was going to play and
sing for Gabriel, but any time will do; I'm only
out because it's so irresistible. 'Bye, Gabriel; I'll
be down some time to-day. Anything special to say,
Jack Jarvis, essentially of New York?"
"Well, I do like the little burg," Jack admitted.
"I don't mind how you guy it; we can stand it,
that village and me I Yes, I wanted to say farewell,
but not for ever. I'm going off to-morrow early.
Hermione's gone to that empty hotel. Say, Maida
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 273
Clayton wanted her the worst way to stay with her.
What do you know about that? The Claytons
will be here late. Hermione said: 'Nay, Nay,
Pauline', or words to that effect, only spoken
prettily, of course! We're comitxg to Paxton for
the wedding, Christmas week. We're going to
have a wedding that'll be so fine that the account
of it in the papers will be deposited in the comer
stones of whatever they build around here next
year; biggest thing ever hit Paxton I Wait till
you hear about it I You'll be glad you're maid
of honour!"
"Certainly I shall bel I am now, before I've
heard the wedding plans!" cried Sylvia.
"I wanted to tell you something else, Sylvia,"
said simple Jack, awkwardly. "I want to say that
I never in all my life saw, nor expect to see, a girl
like you, but I'm satisfied as things are. You
knocked me clean out, but you had the sense to
knock me in againi When I saw Hermione dance,
and saw what a plucky little thing she was, I —
I liked her a whole lot I I wanted you to know
everything was all right. It wouldn't be fair to
anybody for you not to know it. It's going to be Just
A Love Nest for us; we like each other good and
plenty. I wanted you to know."
"Good for you, Jack Jarvis ! " cried Sylvia.
"You're a trump. I'm delighted, and I think
Hermione Elmsley is going to make you happier
right along. She's a fine girl, and she'll be a charm-
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274 "^Ao ^J Sylria?"
ing mistress over a handsome establishment; she
has sense and taste, and is clever. Far better for
you than an old salt like me!"
"As to that," Jack shook his head, "Hermione
doesn't mind that I think you're the Well, what
you are I Sylvia, the whole bunch will be down
for the wedding. You will meet Peggy, my father,
the whole Jarvis contingent. Peg will be daffy
over you; I know Peggy I She'll ask you this
winter. Please make up your mind you're coming!
I'd like just as much as ever to show you New York,
show you to New York I You be ready to tumble
into Peg's arms when she spreads 'em."
"I think we shall drive to the opposite ocean this
winter, good old Jack," said Sylvia. "Maybe not,
if we have to wait till after the wedding, at Christmas,
to go. We'll see. Aren't you coming in?"
"No. I've spoken my little piece, and I'm going
to take Hermione and Sally Meade for a long drive;
likely to Boston and back to-night. Good-bye,
Sylvia. Remember, it's Broadway for you by the
middle of January I"
"Or Santa Barbara!" laughed Sylvia. "Good-
bye, Jack. Tell Hermione I say she's a lucky
girl, but that I send her my love."
"And so she is!" thought Sylvia, watching Jack
down the street as she halted on the piazza. " It's
not so bad, after all, to be so fond of someone that
the whole world gets shaken into place around
them, like spokes around a hub I"
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 275
"Miss Sylvia," said Norah, coming out, "Mr.
Ritchie is waiting for you. He walked down into
the garden."
"Ohl" exclaimed Sylvia, with an undefined sink-
ing at her heart. But she turned, and descended the
steps to go around the house and out to find Gerald.
"Ah, Sylvial" was all that Gerald said when he
saw her; she had come so softly that he had not
heard her step. It was not necessary to say more;
his tone expressed his joy in the apparition.
"Won't you come back to the house, Gerald?
Sorry I was out," Sylvia said.
"Would you mind staying here?" asked Gerald.
"I have not much time left. I'm going away,
Sylvia."
He had his eyes fastened upon her face, watching
it keenly as he spoke, but Sylvia looked up at him
with kindly, steady eyes, full of sympathy, yet hold-
ing nothing more for him.
"Already, Gerald? Your college doesn't open
for two more weeks, you said," Sylvia suggested.
"I'm going to spend these two weeks with a
classmate, a fellow I like awfully. I've had the
house made ready to close it for the winter. There's
not much fun staying on in it. A house closed is
a dreary thing, don't you think?" Gerald asked.
"Indeed I do!" cried Sylvia. "I don't like to
pass one, even though I don't know to whom it
belongs. But try not to remember it as closed;
try to think of it as it was!"
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i
276 "fFko Is Sylvia?"
"When it is so fundamentally diiFerent than it
wasp I'm afraid, Sylvia, that's beyond me." Ger-
ald spoke with quiet sadness, making no bid for
pity-
"I know that was a silly speech," said Sylvia,
contritely. "Don't think I don't understand; I
do. I love my father well enough to understand
you. But at least try to believe, even though it
doesn't seem possible now, that some day you will
re-open the house to be happy in it."
"Sylvia, I could imagine itl I could know it
was true; I could have a foretaste of the truth of
that hope, if " Gerald checked himself. "I
don't think you care for me more than Do you
think, Sylvia, that you would ever — ^want me back?"
"I shall want you to come back, Gerald," said
Sylvia, gently. "I shall be glad to see you when
you do come. I've grown downright fond of you.
I'm fond of my friends, you know I am! But
when I have my home, my boat, my chummy dog,
and then my father, I can't miss any one badly,
nor I feel like a horrid, selfish, cold-hearted frog/
There! But I am happy all the time, whether men
come or go — like Tennyson's Brook! Even Ruth.
I love her dearly, but I can't feel sad without her,
though I often wish she were here when she goes
home."
"I am answered more fully than you quite realize,
perhaps. I knew the answer when I asked the
question," said Gerald, mournfully. "I wish I
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 277
dared think it was only that you are still the steep-
ing princess of the fairy tale, and that I might come
back and waken you. But something tells me that
it will not be I, if ever someone does break through
the growth of thicket that shuts you away in your
friendly, sweet, inaccessible young girlhood. What
about it, Sylvia?"
"I don't think I know, Gerald," said Sylvia,
looking up at him, for Gerald was six feet tall, and
a little more. Her eyes were wistful, and a trifie
sad. "I am, as you say, shut away in my girlhood,
just as much as I was ten years ago. Things and
people keep calling me to waken, but I don't; I
shut my eyes tight and turn away. I am per-
fectly happy when they let me alone; when I hear
them calling it troubles me — but I do not move.
Gerald, I ought to be truthful to you, because
you are so unselfish, so fine, I like you so much!
I don't know what will happen to Sylvia when
she — if ever she wakes up, but it seems to me that
it will not be you who wakens her. I may never
waken; I hope I may not! I'd gladly stay here as
I am, Sylvia Bell, her father's girl, and still childish,
though so talir'
"I'll go, Sylvia," said Gerald, huskily. "You
are crystal clear, so sweetly kind and true I How
can I help wanting you? God keep you, dear.
Good-bye, Sylvia." Gerald left the garden by
its rear gate, Uttle used. Sylvia watched him
away, standing motionless where he had left her.
3.n.iiffid by Google
878 "fFho Is Sylvia f"
"I love him dearlyl" she thought, mopping the
tears on her cheeks with her finger tips, having
groped vainly for her handkerchief. "I do love
him, and I — I sort of revere him! I wonder what
it all is about that it is so much and so tittlel I
wonder why I cry because he's so desirable, and yet
don't want him to stay — to stay inside, I mean!"
"I'm going sailing this afternoon, Cassie," Sylvia
announced. "I seem to need the wide, wide sea!"
"Yes," said Cassandra, intelligently. "I saw
Gerald waiting in the garden, and you come in with-
out him, so I concluded you'd let him go — of course
I mean by the rear gate! These things are wearing.
I never was the kind to get worn in this way a whole
lot, as it doesn't need a prophet to see you're going
to be, but I had one experience, and it was worse 'n
having a tooth out. If it's any consolation to you
to know, he said he'd kill himself, but he never did.
He got married, and is the happy head of a many-
headed family — nine, I believe, there were; children."
Sylvia laughed, and felt unexpectedly better for it.
Cassandra was useful in all sorts of ways, but not
least in her sensible way of seeing the events of life,
and her unintentional humour in discoursing of them.
" I won't go out looking too disreputable," thought
Sylvia, regarding wistfully her water-stained, sun-
faded duck middy and its khaki skirt. "It's not
like early morning to go out in the afternoon; I may
see people capable of being shocked, and I suppose
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 279
Aunt Emily is right, also Casabianca, in saying that
I'm less Captain Sylvia now than Miss Sylvia Bell."
The result of this conscientious awakening was that
Sylvia sallied forth looking particularly pretty in a
white flannel dress and a close, small blue cap. She
went so far as to adorn O'Malley with the marvellous
collar which had been given to Sylvia for him three
years before, in gratitude for the service that she
had, somewhat accidentally, done her country in un-
covering the lair of counterfeiting rascals who had
ensconced themselves in the old Willis house at
Paxton. Sylvia rarely allowed O'Malley to wear
this collar, too Ene for common use, or for safety from
theft; a green leather collar, with silver trimmings,
set with green tourmalines, in the form of shamrocks,
artistically conveying recognition of O'Malley as an
Irish terrier.
Sylvia ran along the beach, paused at Gabriel
Gaby's shack, and was surprised to find Mate atone
in charge. She ran on, O'Malley gleaming greenly
around his neck as the tourmalines caught the sun's
rays.
"You're not going to try it alone, are you?" said
someone, and Sylvia faced around to see Lloyd be-
hind her.
"You didn't make the least soundl" Sylvia said,
half aggrieved; no one quite hkes to be soundlessly
come upon.
"Sneaks on the sands — invisible, inaudible," said
Lloyd.
3.n.llffidbyG0pg[C
28o "Who Is Sylvia?"
"Not invisible!" retorted Sylvia, scanning Lloyd's
feet. There was an established dispute between
them on this subject, Lloyd maintaining that his feet
were tiny, "for their size"; Sylvia that "their size
was immense for its number."
These two found endless pleasure in talking utter
nonsense.
"Be that as it may," Lloyd resumed, "were you
going to try it alone F"
"Sure-ly! Why not?" said Sylvia.
'*A seaman like you knows you must reef in this
wind," Lloyd reminded her. "Hard work to tie the
knots when the work is done by feeble feminine
fingers, unaidedl"
"Feeble masculine minds are not so tremendously
helpful," observed Sylvia in a general way.
"I'm going with you, Tink!" announced Lloyd.
"Are you?" cried Sylvia. "Why didn't you say
so in the first place, and save me from making that
last remark? How could I even remotely suspect
that you thought of going? And what I said must
have sounded to you — having this hidden intention —
almost personal."
"Oh, dear me, no! No, indeedl How could it?"
cried Lloyd. "Here, hands off that rowboati I run
her down to the water and row you out. Know
that, Tink?"
"Efficiency that surpasses the German!" mur-
mured Sylvia to the air, but she let Lloyd have his
way.
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 281
Out on the little fFalloping Window Blind Sylvia
and Lloyd worked together putting in one reef.
The wind was not so high as in the morning; one reef
was enough, but that one was needed.
"Now here's where I come into my ownl" said
Sylvia after the catboat was cast off from her mooring,
as she took the tiller and the sheet and ensconced
herself in the stem, with the long breath that she
usually breathed when she was off on her favourite
pursuit.
"Where is Ruth? I wish we had her with us,"
Sylvia said, for the first time, if the truth were told,
remembering that Ruth was missing.
"She has gone with Gerald Ritchie. He had a
Baytide errand, something to do with insurance
permit to close the house," said Lloyd, visibly
hesitating as he spoke of Gerald.
" Ruth has seen him a good deal lately. She has
helped him with his mother's personal belongings,
and in other ways. She Ukes him a lot, and you
know Ruth's a bom helper and comforter."
Sylvia tumed upon Lloyd a beaming face.
"She certainly is!" she cried. "If there's a
creature in this world put into it to smooth rough
paths and to console, it's sweet little Ruth Hapgood!
Say, Lloyd, you don't suppose — after a while, you
know! Wouldn't it be the best thing ever happened ?
Gerald is as splendid as — as splendourl And Ruth
is — her dear little self! Wouldn't it be great if they
did, you know?"
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282 "Who Is Sylvia^"
"Sylvia! Well, Sylvia I You look set up by the
mere possibility. Would you like it? You would
likeitl Well,myaunt! Ithought — Iwasafraid "
Lloyd stopped.
"I'd grudge Ruth something? Not anythingi"
cried Sylvia. "And of all things thati I'd be so
glad I'd have to be reefed myself, or I'd tip over!
I'm so sorry for Gerald that I achel"
"By all that's wonderful! And to have it come
out so accidentally when I was " Lloyd checked
himself. He knew Sylvia too well to continue on that
line.
"Sylvia, do you mind changing the subject
abruptly? Or — ^well, you can decide later whether
it is really changing it! I've got something to tell
you, kind of a gift for you, if you'll look at it so.
I've been at work all summer on a special course in
EngHsh. Oh, not grammar!" he cried, seeing Sylvia
about to interpolate a comment. "Now stop fooling;
I'm serious! I took a course, and I've had special
exams, and all that, and I've written a poem — or
that's what they call it! And it's taken honours in a
competitive affair. And there's a novelette, and an
essay that they've been brooding over at college, and
they've landed me high on the glittering sands of
fame — or they may! Anyhow, I'm going back to
college teith my shield, not on it."
"Lloyd! Why, Lloyd! I never in all my life!'*
cried Sylvia, so amazed that she had to recall herself
quickly from letting her boat go o(F her course.
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 283
"You've been at work all summer, since vacation?
And you dug like mad last year, at college, I know
thati And you've written You! Lloyd, you
don't write, you know!" Sylvia said, bewilderedly.
"I've wondered why you went in for helUs lettret
at all, why you weren't in a scientific, or eyen a me-
chanical course."
"That's about what I thought you'd say," said
Lloyd, not minding. "But you see, Tink, you're
nuts on books and reading, so I had to try it. Then
I liked it. Now they say I have talent, and shall
make my mark — they don't mean a smudge, either!"
"How could you write a poem?" said Sylvia.
"If I tell you, I'm afraid you won't like it," said
Lloyd. " Promise not to get offended. I thought of
you, the way you move, your face, your ways — it
wasn't hard, Sylvia!"
Sylvia looked into Lloyd's face> the colour slowly,
painfully creeping up into her own face, her eyes full
of wonder, and a dawning new expression, that was
not unmixed with fear.
"Did you do it all for me?" she asked, softly.
"I had to do and be what I could for you, didn't .
I, 'Hnk?" Lloyd said, using the old nickname under
these dawning new, miraculous conditions.
He hummed a line of music, the Sylvia song, that
they all called her own song.
"To her garlands let us bring,' isn't it? I had
to get some garlands," Lloyd said.
"Sylvia — ^Tinker Bell — don't you think one of
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a84 "IFko Is Sylvia?"
these days, when you get big enough to like someone
an awful lot, maybe it will be Lloyd Hapgood^'
"1 don't knowl I almost — think — maybel" SyU
via said, still looking at Lloyd with wondering eyes.
"I don't seem to understand — but you're Lloyd — and
you're notl"
"Oh, yes, I am! Straight Lloydl" he cried.
" But I'm not much older than you, and there's a lot
to be done. I wanted to know if you didn't think,
when it was done, that you'd like me a good deal; say
as well as your father? And that you don't think
you're ever going to like any one else better than me ?"
"I know that I couldn't! Isn't it strange? I
didn't know that tilt just now, Lloyd, but it is truel
I shall like you best, always, you and my father."
Sylvia drew the back of her hand across her dazed
eyes in the boyish way that still was hers, and
jammed her tiller hard down so that the boat swung
around. " I'm going in, Lloyd. I'm going home,"
she said.
"Why,Tink,dear, you're not You don't mind,
do you? You're not offended? It's all clear happy
and — and great, Tink! Haven't we always been
fondof each other?" cried the lad, groping his way in
a mystery new, also, to htm.
"Not like thisi I want to go to my father. It's
all right, Lloydl I'm not mad; it isn't your fault,
but — ^I'm awfully afraid it may be growing up!
Let's go in!" cried Sylvia.
On the beach she bade Lloyd a speedy good-bye.
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"To Her Garlands Let Us Bring" 285
and ran toward the dune path, yet at its foot she
turned back and waved her hand, both hands, to him.
Then she ran homeward, and into the house. Her
father, in the Hbrary, heard her, and called:
"Is that Sylvia? Is that my little girl?"
"Yes, oh, yes, Father, it is I" cried Sylvia, hurrying
to him. "It's your little girl, Sylvia, Nothing in
all this world but your girl, Sylvia I And don't let
anything catch her. It's dear to be tall, little
Sylvia Bell!"
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