respectable, though it 'most killed me as a young girl to feel
us so. But I certainly have a choice gallery of queer folks in my
acquaintance, and I have the queerest hodge-podge of scraps of things
learned from them. I know a little Swedish from Miss Lindstroem. She's
a Swedish old maid who does uplift work among the negroes--isn't that
a weird combination? You just ought to hear what she makes of negro
dialect! And I know all the socialist arguments from hearing a
socialist editor get them off every Sunday afternoon. And I even
know how to manage planchette and write mediumistically--save the
mark!--from Cousin Parnelia, a crazy old cousin of Mother's who hangs
round the house more or less."

"I begin to gather," surmised Morrison, "that you must have a
remarkable father and mother. What are _they_ like?"

"Well," said Sylvia thoughtfully, "Mother's the bravest thing you
ever saw. She's not afraid of _anything_! I don't mean cows, or the
house-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. I mean life and death, and
sickness and poverty and fear...."

Morrison nodded his head understandingly, a fine light of appreciation
in his eyes, "Not to be afraid of fear--that's splendid."

Sylvia went on to particularize. "When any of us are sick--it's
my little brother Lawrence who is mostly--Judith and I are always
well--Father just goes all to pieces, he gets so frightened. But
Mother stiffens her back and _makes_ everything in the house go on
just as usual, very quiet, very calm. She holds everything together
_tight_. She says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to accept
life at all, not to accept _all_ of it--the sour with the sweet--and
not whimper."

"Very fine,--very fine! Possibly a very small bit ... grim?" commented
Morrison, with a rising inflection.

"Oh, perhaps, a little!" agreed Sylvia, as if it did not matter; "but
I can't give you any idea of Mother. She's--she's just _great_! And
yet I couldn't live like her, without wanting to smash everything up.
She's somebody that Seneca would have liked."

"And your father?" queried Morrison.

"Oh, he's great too--dear Father--but so different! He and Mother
between them have just about all the varieties of human nature that
are worth while! Father's red-headed (though it's mostly gray now),
and quick, and blustering, and awfully clever, and just adored by
his students, and talks every minute, and apparently does all the
deciding, and yet ... he couldn't draw the