ays that if I just will read novels I ought to read good
ones, and she gave me a set of Thackeray for my own; but you can skip a
whole lot in him, I'm here to state! One of our best critics has said
(mama's always saying that) that the best readers are those who know
how to skip, and I'm a good skipper. I always want to know how it's
going to come out. If they can't live happy forever afterward I want
them to part beautifully, with soft music playing; and _he_ must go away
and leave _her_ holding a rose as a pledge that _he_ will never forget."

When Marian paused there was a silence as Sylvia tried to pick out of
this long speech something to which she could respond. Marian was
astonishingly wise; Sylvia felt herself immeasurably younger, and she
was appalled by her own ignorance before this child who had touched so
many sides of life and who recounted her experiences so calmly and
lightly.

"This is the first time I ever visited," Sylvia confessed. "I live with
my grandfather Kelton, right by Madison College, that's at Montgomery,
you know. Grandfather was a professor in the college, and still lectures
there sometimes. I've never been to school--"

"How on earth do you escape?" demanded Marian.

"It's not an escape," laughed Sylvia; "you see grandfather, being a
professor, began teaching me almost before I began remembering."

"Oh! But even that would be better than a boarding-school, where they
make you study. It would be easy to tell your grandfather that you
didn't want to do things."

"I suppose it would," Sylvia acknowledged; "but it's so nice to have him
for a teacher that I shouldn't know just how to do it."

This point of view did not interest Marian, and she recurred to her own
affairs.

"I've been to Europe. Papa took us all last year. We went to Paris and
London. It was fine."

"My grandfather was in the United States Navy, before he began teaching
at Madison, so I know a good deal from him about Europe."

"Blackford--he's my brother--is going to Annapolis," said Marian, thus
reminded of her brother's aspirations. "At least he says he is, though
he used to talk about West Point. I hope he will go into the Army. I
should like to visit West Point; it must be perfectly fascinating."

"I suppose it is. I think I should like college."

"Not for me!" exclaimed Marian. "I want to go to a convent in Paris. I
know a girl right here in Indianapolis who did that, and it's perfectly
fine and ever so roman