rounded slimness, as a boy's. Her hair was beautiful, a
bright chestnut brown with a good deal of red, its brilliant gloss
broken into innumerable high-lights by the ripple of its waviness; and
she had one other positive beauty, the clearly penciled line of her
long, dark eyebrows, which ran up a trifle at the outer ends with a
little quirk, giving an indescribable air of alertness and vivacity to
her expression. Otherwise she was not at that age, nor did she ever
become, so explicitly handsome as her sister Judith, who had at every
period of her life a head as beautiful as that on a Greek coin.
But when the two were together, although the perfectly adjusted
proportions of Judith's proud, dark face brought out the
irregularities of Sylvia's, disclosed the tilt of her small nose, made
more apparent the disproportionate width between her eyes, and showed
her chin to be of no mold in particular, yet a modern eye rested with
far more pleasure on the older sister's face. A bright, quivering
mobility like sunshine on water, gave it a charm which was not
dependent on the more obvious prettinesses of a fine-grained, white
skin, extremely clear brown eyes, and a mouth quick to laugh and
quiver, with pure, sharply cut outline and deeply sunk corners. Even
in repose, Sylvia's face made Judith's seem unresponsive, and when
it lighted up in talk and laughter, it seemed to give out a visible
light. In contrast Judith's beautiful countenance seemed carved out of
some very hard and indestructible stone.

And yet, in spite of this undeniably satisfactory physical outfit, and
pre-eminent ability in athletics, Sylvia was not invited to join any
of the best fraternities. It is not surprising that there was
mingled with her bitterness on the subject a justifiable amount of
bewilderment. What _did_ they want? They recruited, from her very side
in classes, girls without half her looks or cleverness. What _was_ the
matter with her? She would not for her life have given a sign to her
family of her mental sufferings as, during that first autumn, day
after day went by with no sign of welcome from the social leaders of
her new world; but a mark was left on her character by her affronted
recognition of her total lack of success in this, her first appearance
outside the sheltering walls of her home; her first trial by the real
standards of the actual world of real people.

The fact, which would have been balm to Sylvia's vanity, had she ever
had t