e form; but never in any form remotely resembling what
Judith wrote. The letter stated in Judith's concise style that of
course she agreed with Sylvia that there should be no secrets between
betrothed lovers, nor, in this case, were there any. Arnold had told
her, the evening before she left Lydford, that he had inherited an
alcoholic tendency from his father. She had been in communication
with a great specialist in Wisconsin about the case. She knew of the
sanitarium to which Arnold had been taken and did not like it. The
medical treatment there was not serious. She hoped soon to have
him transferred to the care of Dr. Rivedal. If Arnold's general
constitution were still sound, there was every probability of a cure.
Doctors knew so much more about that sort of thing than they used
to. Had Sylvia heard that Madame La Rue was not a bit well, that old
trouble with her heart, only worse? They'd been obliged to hire a
maid--how in the world were the La Rues going to exist on American
cooking? Cousin Parnelia said she could cure Madame with some
Sanopractic nonsense, a new fad that Cousin Parnelia had taken up
lately. Professor Kennedy had been elected vice-president of the
American Mathematical Association, and it was funny to see him try to
pretend that he wasn't pleased. Mother's garden this autumn was ...

"_Well_!" ejaculated Sylvia, stopping short. Mrs. Marshall-Smith had
stopped to listen in the midst of the exhausting toil of telling
Helene which dresses to pack and which to leave hanging in the Lydford
house. She now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away to
the closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favorite
black-and-white chiffon. To Sylvia she said, "Now I know exactly how a
balloon feels when it is pricked."

Sylvia agreed ruefully. "I might have known Judith would manage to
make me feel flat if I got wrought up about it. She hates a fuss made
over anything, and she can always take you down if you make one."
She remembered with a singular feeling of discomfiture the throbbing
phrases of her letter, written under the high pressure of the quarrel
with Aunt Victoria. She could almost see the expression of austere
distaste in the stern young beauty of Judith's face. Judith was always
making her appear foolish!

"We were both of us," commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith dryly, "somewhat
mistaken about the degree of seriousness with which Judith would take
the information."

Sylvia forgot her vexation