affectionate, tactful manner that not one of
them resented her interference. Mercy had very soon discovered that
Sylvia had far more in her than most girls of her age, the expressive
hazel-grey eyes, lost sometimes in a brown study, or shining with
excitement over some new pleasure, told a tale of the eager mind
behind them; and the child's many quaint remarks, decided opinions,
the flashes of humour or flights of fancy in which she occasionally
indulged, singled her out as possessing powers far beyond the average.

"She has just twice the brains of Connie Camden or Nina Forster," said
Mercy to a fellow monitress; "I shouldn't be at all surprised if she
were to be a great credit to the school some day. You should hear the
clever games she invents for the babies, and the marvellous stories
she makes up for them. She really has a wonderful imagination. She has
got through nearly half the Waverley novels already, and I found her
reading Tennyson one day. She's rather too fond of airing her ideas,
and is a little conceited, but Hazel and Marian sit upon her so hard
that she'll soon get over it. She's a most affectionate child, far
more so than any of the others. She's the only one who ever seems
really grateful for what one does for them. I think she's a dear
little thing, and I'm glad she has come here."

If Mercy were disposed to make much of Sylvia, the latter was only too
ready to return her kindness with that devotion which a younger girl
often feels for one considerably older than herself. With Sylvia it
was not a shifting fancy, such as Nina Forster formed nearly every
week, and changed as rapidly, but a genuine love, founded on a firm
basis of all-round admiration. She thought Mercy the prettiest,
cleverest, and best girl she had ever known in her life, and when she
discovered her to be the heroine of a most romantic history, her
interest in her was increased a thousandfold. She had heard once or
twice that Mercy was an orphan, and had no home of her own to go to
during the holidays, but it was only by degrees she gathered the
various facts of the case, though when they were fitted together they
formed a narrative as thrilling as any to be found in the gaily bound
volumes over which it had been her delight to pore. As Sylvia got the
account mostly in disjointed scraps, first from one girl and then from
another, and was obliged to connect them for herself, it will be as
well to tell Mercy's story here as she learnt