compare them to those of the other girl.

After this brief disposal of the question, she gave it no more
thought, working with desperate speed to complete all her
preparations. She had but a week for these, a week filled with
incessant hurry, since she was naturally unwilling to ask help of her
mother. Judith was off again with her father.

This absence greatly facilitated the moment of Sylvia's departure,
which she had dreaded. But, as it happened, there was only her mother
to whom to say the rather difficult good-bye, her mother who could be
counted on never to make a scene.

About the middle of the morning of the twenty-third of December,
she came down the stairs, her hand-bag in her hand, well-hatted,
well-gloved, freshly veiled, having achieved her usual purpose of
looking to the casual eye like the daughter of a wealthy man. She had
put all of her autumn allowance for dress into a set of furs, those
being something which no ingenuity could evolve at home. The rest
of her outfit, even to the odd little scarlet velvet hat, with its
successful and modish touch of the ugly, was the achievement of her
own hands. Under its absurd and fashionable brim, her fresh face shone
out, excessively pretty and very young.

Mrs. Marshall kissed her good-bye gently, not smiling at Sylvia's
attempt to lighten the moment's seriousness by saying playfully,
"Now, Mother, don't you be such an old worrier!" But she said nothing
"uncomfortable," for which Sylvia was very grateful.

She had no sooner embarked upon the big Interurban trolley-car which
was to take her to Mercerton than her attention was wholly diverted
from uneasy reflections by the unexpected appearance of two of the
house-party guests. Eleanor Hubert, every detail of her Complicated
costume exquisitely finished as a Meissonier painting, sat looking out
of the window rather soberly, and so intently that she saw neither
Sylvia's entrance, nor, close upon her heels, that of a florid-faced,
rather heavily built young man with a large, closely shaven jaw, who
exclaimed joyfully at seeing Miss Marshall, and appropriated with
ready assurance the other half of her seat.

"Now, this is surely dandy! You're going to the house-party too,
of course!" he cried, unbuttoning and throwing back his bright tan
overcoat. "Here's where I cut Jerry out all right, all right! Wait
a minute! _How_ much time have we?" He appealed to the conductor
as though a matter of life and death depende