letter in her hand.

"Oh, read it!" she cried, her face kindling with glory.

It turned out to be a letter from the great Mr. Prentice, of the
Louisville _Journal_ accepting a poem she had lately sent him, and
assigning her a fixed place among his vast and twinkling galaxy of
Kentucky poetesses. The title of the poem was, "My Lover Kneels to
None but God."

"I infer from this," I said, gravely, "that your lover is a Kentuckian."

"He is," cried Sylvia. "Oh, his peerless, haughty pride!"

"Well, I congratulate you, Sylvia," I continued, mildly, "upon having
such an editor and such a lover; but I really think that your lover
ought to kneel a little to Mr. Prentice on this one occasion."

"Never!" cried Sylvia. "I would spurn him as chaff!"

"Some day when you meet Mr. Prentice, Sylvia," I continued, further,
"you will want to be very nice to him, and you might give him something
new to parse."

Sylvia studied me dubiously; the subject is not one that reassures her.

"Because the other day I heard a very great friend of Mr. Prentice's
say of him that when he was fifteen he could parse every sentence in
Virgil and Homer. And if he could do that then, think what he must he
able to do now, and what a pleasure it must afford him!"