ce.

The cab stopped at a door in a narrow wall between two houses, and she
got out. Over the wall she saw the green leaves and branches of a few
lime trees which rose from a little garden, and at the end of the garden,
in the far recess between the two side walls, the upper windows of a
little neat white house. Sylvia was charmed with it. She rang the bell,
and a servant came to the door.

"Is Mr. Skinner in?" asked Sylvia.

"Yes," she said, doubtfully, "but--"

Sylvia, however, had made her plans.

"Thank you," she said. She made a sign to the cabman, and walked on
through the doorway into a little garden of grass with a few flowers on
each side against the walls. A tiled path led through the middle of the
grass to the glass door of the house. Sylvia walked straight down,
followed by the cabman who brought her boxes in one after the other. The
servant, giving way before the composure of this strange young visitor,
opened the door of a sitting-room upon the left hand, and Sylvia,
followed by her trunks, entered and took possession.

"What name shall I say?" asked the servant in perplexity. She had had no
orders to expect a visitor. Sylvia paid the cabman and waited until she
heard the garden door close and the jingle of the cab as it was driven
away. Then, and not till then, she answered the question.

"No name. Just please tell Mr. Skinner that some one would like to see
him."

The servant stared, but went slowly away. Sylvia seated herself firmly
upon one of the boxes. In spite of her composed manner, her heart was
beating wildly. She heard a door open and the firm tread of a man along
the passage. Sylvia clung to her box. After all she was in the house, she
and her baggage. The door opened and a tall broad-shouldered man, who
seemed to fill the whole tiny room, came in and stared at her. Then he
saw her boxes, and he frowned in perplexity. As he appeared to Sylvia, he
was a man of about forty-five, with a handsome, deeply-lined aquiline
face. He had thick, dark brown hair, a mustache of a lighter brown and
eyes of the color of hers--a man rather lean but of an athletic build.
Sylvia watched him intently, but the only look upon his face was one of
absolute astonishment. He saw a young lady, quite unknown to him, perched
upon her luggage in a sitting-room of his house.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied, getting on to her feet. She looked at him gravely. "I
am Sylvia," she said.

A sm