is so I cannot tell; but now
I seldom have the old dissatisfied and restless feeling. Everything
looks pleasant to me, every one seems kind, and life begins to be both
sweet and earnest. It is only one of my moods, I suppose; but I am
grateful for it, and pray that it may last."

So earnestly she spoke, so cheerfully she smiled, that Miss Yule blessed
the mood and echoed Sylvia's wish, exclaiming in the next breath, with a
sudden inspiration--

"My, dear, I've got it! You are growing up."

"I think I am. You tried to make a woman of me at sixteen, but it was
impossible until the right time came. That wild trip up the river, as
you call it, did more for me than I can ever tell, and when I seemed
most like a child I was learning to be a woman."

"Well, my dear, go on as you've begun, and I shall be more than
satisfied. What merry-making is on foot to-night? Mark and these friends
of his keep you in constant motion with their riding, rowing, and
rambling excursions, and if it did not agree with you so excellently, I
really should like a little quiet after a month of bustle."

"They are only coming up as usual, and that reminds me that I must go
and dress."

"There is another new change, Sylvia. You never used to care what you
wore or how you looked, no matter how much time and trouble I expended
on you and your wardrobe. Now you do care, and it does my heart good to
see you always charmingly dressed, and looking your prettiest," said
Miss Yule, with the satisfaction of a woman who heartily believed in
costume as well as all the other elegances and proprieties of
fashionable life.

"Am I ever that, Prue?" asked Sylvia, pausing on the threshold with a
shy yet wistful glance.

"Ever what, dear?"

"Pretty?"

"Always so to me; and now I think every one finds you very attractive
because you try to please, and seem to succeed delightfully."

Sylvia had never asked that question before, had never seemed to know or
care, and could not have chosen a more auspicious moment for her frank
inquiry than the present. The answer seemed to satisfy her, and smiling
at some blithe anticipation of her own, she went away to make a lampless
toilet in the dusk, which proved how slight a hold the feminine passion
for making one's self pretty had yet taken upon her.

The September moon was up and shining clearly over garden, lawn, and
sea, when the sound of voices called her down. At the stair-foot she
paused with a disappointed air