common sorts of wisdom; left college after a year of it,
because it could not give him what he wanted, and taking the world for
his university, life for his tutor, says he shall not graduate till his
term ends with days."

"I know I shall like him very much."

"I hope so, for my sake. He is a grand man in the rough, and an
excellent tonic for those who have courage to try him."

Sylvia was silent, thinking over all she had just heard and finding much
to interest her in it, because, to her imaginative and enthusiastic
nature, there was something irresistibly attractive in the strong,
solitary, self-reliant man. Mark watched her for a moment, then asked
with lazy curiosity--

"How do you like this other friend of mine?"

"He went away when I was such a child that since he came back I've had
to begin again; but if I like him at the end of another month as much as
I do now, I shall try to make your friend my friend, because I need such
an one very much."

Mark laughed at the innocent frankness of his sister's speech but took
it as she meant it, and answered soberly--

"Better leave Platonics till you're forty. Though Moor is twelve years
older than yourself he is a young man still, and you are grown a very
captivating little woman."

Sylvia looked both scornful and indignant.

"You need have no fears. There is such a thing as true and simple
friendship between men and women, and if I can find no one of my own sex
who can give me the help and happiness I want, why may I not look for it
anywhere and accept it in whatever shape it comes?"

"You may, my dear, and I'll lend a hand with all my heart, but you must
be willing to take the consequences in whatever shape _they_ come," said
Mark, not ill pleased with the prospect his fancy conjured up.

"I will," replied Sylvia loftily, and fate took her at her word.

Presently some one suggested bed, and the proposition was unanimously
accepted.

"Where are you going to hang me?" asked Sylvia, as she laid hold of her
hammock and looked about her with nearly as much interest as if her
suspension was to be of the perpendicular order.

"You are not to be swung up in a tree to-night but laid like a ghost,
and requested not to walk till morning. There is an unused barn close
by, so we shall have a roof over us for one night longer," answered
Mark, playing chamberlain while the others remained to quench the fire
and secure the larder.

An early moon lighted Sylvia to bed,