“However it may be, Sylvia, who is an unspoiled girl of the frank and intellectual type, tall, and radiant with warm-hearted health, was kept much away at boarding-school for three years, and then went to college for a special two years’ course in literature.  She had barely returned home when her mother, hearing that I was going abroad, asked me to take Sylvia with me, as she was deficient in languages, which would be a drawback to her social career.

“It seemed a trifle strange to me, as she was then nineteen, an age when most girls of her class are brought out, and had been away for practically five years.  But I took her gladly, and she has been a most lovable companion and friend.  She called me Aunt, to overcome the formal Miss, and I wish she were my daughter.  I’m only wondering if her high, unworldly standpoint, absorbed from wise teachers, and the halo that she has constructed from imagination and desire about her parents during the years of her separation from them, will not embarrass them a little, now that she is at home for good.

“By the way, we met in England last spring a young sub-professor, Horace Bradford, a most unusual young man for nowadays, but of old New England stock.  He was one of Sylvia’s literature instructors at Rockcliffe College, and he joined our party during the month we spent in the Shakespeare country.  It was his first trip, and, I take it, earned by great self-sacrifice; and his scholarly yet boyish enthusiasm added hugely to our enjoyment.

“He spoke constantly of his mother.  Do you know her?  She lives on the old place, which was a farm of the better class, I take it, his father having been the local judge, tax collector, and general consulting factotum of his county.  It is at Pine Ridge Centre, which, if I remember rightly, is not far from your town.  I should like you to know him.

“I have only seen Sylvia twice since our return, but she lunches with me to-morrow.  You and she should be fast friends, for she is of your ilk; and if this happens, I shall not regret the advent of the Whirlpool Colony in your beloved Oaklands as much as I do now.

“I am really beginning to look forward to my country visit, and am glad to see that some ‘advance season’ tops are spinning on the pavement in front of the house, and a game of marbles is in progress in my front yard itself, safe from the annoying skirts of passers-by.  For you should know, dear Madam Pan, that marbles and tops are the city’s first spring sign.

“By the way, I am sure that Horace Bradford and Sylvia are keeping up a literary correspondence.  They are perfectly suited to each other for any and every grade of friendship, yet from her family standpoint no one could be more unwelcome.  He has no social backing; his mother is a religious little country woman, who doubtless says ‘riz’ and ‘reckon,’ and he only has what he can earn by mental effort.  But this is neither here nor there, and I’m sure you and I will have an interesting summer croon in spite of your qualms and resentment of the moneyed invasion.—­Not another word, Lucy is waiting to take this to the post-box.