day and I want to be sure somebody'll look after him. By God,
he's all I got!"

He swung round, but his eyes were upon the floor; he drew out a
handkerchief and blew his nose noisily.

"By George," he exclaimed, "I promised Allen to take you up to Sally
Owen's. You know Mrs. Owen? That's right; Allen said she's been asking
about you. She likes young folks; she'll never be old herself. Allen and
I are going there for supper, and he's asked her if he might bring you
along. Aunt Sally's a great woman. And"--he grinned ruefully--"a good
trader. She has beat me on many a horse trade, that woman; and I always
go back to try it again. You kind o' like having her do you. And I guess
I'm the original easy mark when it comes to horse. Get your hat and come
along. Allen's fixed this all up with her. I guess you and she are the
best friends the boy's got."

CHAPTER XII

BLURRED WINDOWS

With Sylvia's life in college we have little to do, but a few notes we
must make now that she has reached her sophomore year. She had never
known girls until she went to college and she had been the shyest of
freshmen, the least obtrusive of sophomores.

She had carried her work from the start with remarkable ease and as the
dragons of failure were no longer a menace she began to give more heed
to the world about her. She was early recognized as an earnest,
conscientious student whose work in certain directions was brilliant;
and as a sophomore her fellows began to know her and take pride in her.
She was relieved to find herself swept naturally into the social
currents of the college. She had been afraid of appearing stiff or
priggish, but her self-consciousness quickly vanished in the broad,
wholesome democracy of college life. The best scholar in her class, she
was never called a grind and she was far from being a frump. The wisest
woman in the faculty said of Sylvia: "That girl with her head among the
stars has her feet planted on solid ground. Her life will count." And
the girlhood that Sylvia had partly lost, was recovered and prolonged.
It was a fine thing to be an American college girl, Sylvia realized, and
the varied intercourse, the day's hundred and one contacts and small
excitements, meant more to her than her fellow students knew. When there
was fun in the air Sylvia could be relied upon to take a hand in it. Her
allowance was not meagre and she joined zestfully in such excursions as
were possible, to concerts, lectures, a