ceive Prue's
lecture, with outward meekness, but such an absent mind that the words
of wisdom went by her like the wind.

"Now come and take our twilight stroll, while Mark keeps Mr. Moor in the
studio and Prue prepares another exhortation," said Sylvia, as her
father woke, and taking his arm, they paced along the wide piazza that
encircled the whole house.

"Will father do me a little favor?"

"That is all he lives for, dear."

"Then his life is a very successful one;" and the girl folded her other
hand over that already on his arm. Mr. Yule shook his head with a
regretful sigh, but asked benignly--

"What shall I do for my little daughter?"

"Forbid Mark to execute a plot with which he threatens me. He says he
will bring every gentleman he knows (and that is a great many) to the
house, and make it so agreeable that they will keep coming; for he
insists that I need amusement, and nothing will be so entertaining as a
lover or two. Please tell him not to, for I don't want any lovers yet."

"Why not?" asked her father, much amused at her twilight confidences.

"I'm afraid. Love is so cruel to some people, I feel as if it would be
to me, for I am always in extremes, and continually going wrong while
trying to go right. Love bewilders the wisest, and it would make me
quite blind or mad, I know; therefore I'd rather have nothing to do with
it, for a long, long while."

"Then Mark shall be forbidden to bring a single specimen. I very much
prefer to keep you as you are. And yet you may be happier to do as
others do; try it, if you like, my dear."

"But I can't do as others do; I've tried, and failed. Last winter, when
Prue made me go about, though people probably thought me a stupid little
thing, moping in corners, I was enjoying myself in my own way, and
making discoveries that have been very useful ever since. I know I'm
whimsical, and hard to please, and have no doubt the fault was in
myself, but I was disappointed in nearly every one I met, though I went
into what Prue calls 'our best society.' The girls seemed all made on
the same pattern; they all said, did, thought, and wore about the same
things, and knowing one was as good as knowing a dozen. Jessie Hope was
the only one I cared much for, and she is so pretty, she seems made to
be looked at and loved."

"How did you find the young gentlemen, Sylvia?"

"Still worse; for, though lively enough among themselves they never
found it worth their while to offer