ults equally with open arms.

As to the effect upon Sylvia, father exhibits much concern, and no
little anxiety, for he has read her as a nature in some respects old for
her twenty-one years, and in others, the side of the feminine, wholly
young and unawakened, so that this jar, he thinks, comes at a most
critical moment.

He has a pretty theory that the untroubled heart of a young girl is like
a vessel full of the fresh spring sap of the sugar maple that is being
freed by slow fire from its crudities and condensed to tangible form.
When a certain point is reached, it is ready to crystallize about the
first object that stirs it ever so lightly, irrespective of its quality:
this is first love. But if the condensing process is lingering, no jar
disturbing it prematurely until, as it reaches perfection, the vital
touch suddenly reaches its depths, then comes real love, perfected at
first sight, clinging everlastingly to the object, love that endures by
its own strength, not by mere force of habit; and this love belongs only
to the heart's springtime, before full consciousness has made it
speculative.

* * * * *

When Horace Bradford drove homeward the afternoon of the fete, he was in
a brown study, having no realization of time or place until the wise
horse turned in at the barnyard gate, and after standing a moment by his
usual hitching post, looked over his shoulder and gave a whinny to
attract his master's attention. Then Horace started up, shook off his
lethargy, and hurried to the porch, where his mother stood waiting, to
give her the roses, and Sylvia's message.

Mrs. Bradford was, for one of her reserve, almost childishly eager to
hear of the experiences of the afternoon, and was prepared to sit down
comfortably on the porch and have her son give a full account of it; but
instead, he gave her a few rather incoherent details, and leaving her
standing with the splendid roses held close to her face, very much in
Sylvia's own attitude, he hurried up to his room, where she could hear
him moving about as if unpacking his things, and opening and shutting
drawers nervously.

"Never mind," she said softly to herself, "he will tell me all about her
when he is ready. Meanwhile, I'll wait, and not get in his way,--that is
what mothers are for." But by some strange impulse she loosened the
string that bound the roses, and placed them in one of her few treasures,
a silver bowl, in the centre