that it was originally, and he always had longings to be in a
position to coax his mother to come to Northbridge for the winter, and
keep a little apartment for him. Perhaps he will be able to do both now."

Sylvia spoke with keen but quite impersonal interest, and looking at her
I began to wonder if here might not, after all, be the comrade type of
woman in whose existence I never before believed,--feminine,
sympathetic, buoyant, yet capable of absolutely rational and unemotional
friendship with a man within ten years of her own age. But after all it
is common enough to find the first half of such a friendship, it is the
unit that is difficult; and I had then had no opportunity of seeing the
two together.

We went upstairs together, and lingered by the fire in Miss Lavinia's
sitting room before going to make ready for dinner. The thaw of the
morning was again locked by ice, and it was quite a nippy night for the
season. I, revelled mentally in the fact that my dinner waist was crimson
in colour, and abbreviated only in the way of elbow sleeves, and the
pretty low corn-coloured crepe bodice that I saw Lucy unpacking from
Sylvia's suit case quite made me shiver.

The only light in Miss Lavinia's den, other than the fire, was a low
lamp, with a soft-hued amber shade, so that the room seemed to draw close
about one like protecting arms, country fashion, instead of seeking to
turn one out, which is the feeling that so many of the stately apartments
in the great city houses give me.

When I am indoors I want space to move and breathe in, of course, but I
like to feel intrenched; and only when I open the door and step outside,
do I wish to give myself up to space, for Nature is the only one who
really knows how to handle vastness without overdoing it.

As we sat there in silence I watched the play of firelight on
Sylvia's face, and the same thought seemed to cross it as she closed
her eyes and nestled back in Miss Lavinia's funny little fat sewing
chair, that was like a squab done in upholstery. Then, as the clock
struck six, she started, rubbed her eyes, and crossed the hall to her
room half in a dream.

"She is as like her Grandmother Latham when I first saw her, as a girl
of twenty-one can be like a woman of fifty," said Miss Lavinia, from the
lounge close at my elbow. "Not in colouring or feature, but in poise
and gesture. The Lathams were of Massachusetts stock, and have, I
imagine, a good deal of the Plymouth Rock