ed Sylvia.

"Of course not _that_," rejoined Mrs. Bassett hastily. "I think it's
fine that with your culture you will go and live in such a place; it
shows a beautiful spirit of self-sacrifice."

"Oh, please don't say that! I'm going there just because I want to go!"
And then, smiling to ease the moment's tension, "I expect to have the
best of times at Elizabeth House."

"Sylvia"--remarked Mrs. Owen, drawling the name a trifle more than
usual--"Sylvia can do what she pleases anywhere."

"I think," said Bassett, who had not before entered into the discussion,
"that Aunt Sally has struck the right word there. In these days a girl
can do as she likes; and we haven't any business to discuss Miss
Garrison's right to live at Elizabeth House."

"Of course, Sylvia, we didn't mean to seem to criticize you. You know
that," said Mrs. Bassett, flushing.

"You are my friends," said Sylvia, glancing round the table, "and if
there's criticizing to be done, you have the first right."

"If Sylvia is to be criticized,--and I don't understand that any one has
tried it," remarked Mrs. Owen,--"I want the first chance at her myself."
And with the snapping of her spectacle case they rose from the table.

They had barely settled themselves in the parlor when Harwood and Allen
arrived in Allen's motor. Dan had expected his friend to resent his
part in the convention, and he had sought Allen at Lueders's shop to
satisfy himself that their personal relations had not been disturbed. He
had found Allen, at the end of a day's work, perched upon a bench
discoursing to the workmen on the Great Experiment. Allen had, it
seemed, watched the convention from an obscure corner of the gallery. He
pronounced Dan's speech "immense"; "perfectly bully"; he was extravagant
in his praise of it. His father's success in naming the ticket had
seemed to him a great triumph. Allen viewed the whole matter with a kind
of detachment, as a spectator whose interest is wholly impersonal. He
thought there would be a great fight between the combatants; his dad
hadn't finished yet, he declared, sententiously. The incidents of the
convention had convinced him that the Great Experiment was progressing
according to some predestined formula. He and Harwood had dined together
at the University Club and he was quite in the humor to call on the
Bassetts at Mrs. Owen's; and the coming of Sylvia, as to whom Mrs. Owen
had piqued his curiosity, was not to be overlooked.

He cle