actress. Mama says that if I just will read novels I ought to read good
ones, and she gave me a set of Thackeray for my own; but you can skip a
whole lot in him, I'm here to state! One of our best critics has said
(mama's always saying that) that the best readers are those who know
how to skip, and I'm a good skipper. I always want to know how it's
going to come out. If they can't live happy forever afterward I want
them to part beautifully, with soft music playing; and _he_ must go away
and leave _her_ holding a rose as a pledge that _he_ will never forget."

When Marian paused there was a silence as Sylvia tried to pick out of
this long speech something to which she could respond. Marian was
astonishingly wise; Sylvia felt herself immeasurably younger, and she
was appalled by her own ignorance before this child who had touched so
many sides of life and who recounted her experiences so calmly and
lightly.

"This is the first time I ever visited," Sylvia confessed. "I live with
my grandfather Kelton, right by Madison College, that's at Montgomery,
you know. Grandfather was a professor in the college, and still lectures
there sometimes. I've never been to school--"

"How on earth do you escape?" demanded Marian.

"It's not an escape," laughed Sylvia; "you see grandfather, being a
professor, began teaching me almost before I began remembering."

"Oh! But even that would be better than a boarding-school, where they
make you study. It would be easy to tell your grandfather that you
didn't want to do things."