village manufacturer whom she espied flashing through the Lane on a
black pony, and this young person symbolized all worldly grandeur to
Sylvia's adoring vision. Sylvia knew the world chiefly from her
reading,--Miss Alcott's and Mrs. Whitney's stories at first, and "St.
Nicholas" every month, on a certain day that found her meeting the
postman far across the campus; and she had read all the "Frank"
books,--the prized possessions of a neighbor's boy,--from the Maine
woods through the gunboat and prairie exploits of that delectable hero.
At fourteen she had fallen upon Scott and Bulwer and had devoured them
voraciously during the long vacation, in shady corners of the deserted
campus; and she was now fixing Dickens's characters ineffaceably in her
mind by Cruikshank's drawings. She was well grounded in Latin and had a
fair reading knowledge of French and German. It was true of Sylvia, then
and later, that poetry did not greatly interest her, and this had been
attributed to her undoubted genius for mathematics. She was old for her
age, people said, and the Lane wondered what her grandfather meant to
do with her.

The finding of Professor Kelton proves to be, as Sylvia had surmised, a
simple matter. He is at work in a quiet alcove of the college library, a
man just entering sixty, with white, close-trimmed hair and beard. The
eyes he raises to his granddaughter are like hers, and there is a
further resemblance in the dark skin. His face brightens and his eyes
kindle as he clasps Sylvia's slender, supple hand.

"It must be a student--are you sure he isn't a student?"

Sylvia was confident of it.

"Very likely an agent, then. They're very clever about disguising