is so likable himself."

Barbara nodded

"And you've had the good sense to find that out," she said. "It's
astonishing how few people knew it. But then, as I said, Michael hadn't
flowered. No one understood him, or was interested. Then he suddenly
made up his mind last summer what he wanted to do and be, and
immediately did and was it."

"I think he told Hermann," said she. "His father didn't approve, did
he?"

"Approve? My dear, if you knew my brother you would know that the only
things he approves of are those which Michael isn't."

Sylvia spread her fine hands out to the blaze, warming them and shading
her face.

"Michael always seems to us--" she began. "Ah, I called him Michael by
mistake."

"Then do it on purpose next time," remarked Barbara. "What does Michael
seem?"

"Ah, but don't let him know I called him Michael," said Sylvia in some
horror. "There is nothing so awful as to speak of people formally to
their faces, and intimately behind their backs. But Hermann is always
talking of him as Michael."

"And Michael always seems--"

"Oh, yes; he always seems to me to have been part of us, of Hermann and
me, for years. He's THERE, if you know what I mean, and so few people
are there. They walk about your life, and go in and out, so to speak,
but Michael stops. I suppose it's because he is so natural."

Aunt Barbara had been a diplomatist long before her husband, and fearful
of appearing inquisitive about Sylvia's impression of Michael, which she
really wanted to inquire into, instantly changed the subject.

"Ah, everybody who has got definite things to do is natural," she said.
"It is only the idle people who have leisure to look at themselves in
the glass and pose. And I feel sure that you have definite things to do
and plenty of them, my dear. What are they?"

"Oh, I sing a little," said Sylvia.

"That is the first unnatural thing you have said. I somehow feel that
you sing a great deal."

Aunt Barbara suddenly got up.

"My dear, you are not THE Miss Falbe, are you, who drove London crazy
with delight last summer. Don't tell me you are THE Miss Falbe?"

Sylvia laughed.

"Do you know, I'm afraid I must be," she said. "Isn't it dreadful to
have to say that after your description?"

Aunt Barbara sat down again, in a sort of calm despair.

"If there are any more shocks coming for me to-night," she said, "I
think I had better go home. I have encountered a perfectly new nephew
Michael. I hav