o her!" sighed Sylvia regretfully. "I was
always meaning to be, but now it's too late. That's the worst of
putting off things in this world; the chance may never come again!"

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

A whole week passed by before Sylvia had an opportunity of telling her
great news to her friend. To begin with, Bridgie was absent from home
for three days and nights, attending a ball and a water-party given by
Esmeralda for the entertainment of her house-party, and to neither of
which Sylvia had received an invitation. To be sure, it was no use
going to a dance when dancing was an impossibility, and the getting in
and out of boats would have been painful and difficult, but all the same
Sylvia felt slighted and out in the cold, and, though absent in the
flesh, mentally followed every stage in the two entertainments, and
tortured herself by imagining Jack's light-hearted enjoyment and
absorption in other company than her own.

When Bridgie returned home, Miss Munns insisted on several expeditions
to town, and also to surrounding suburbs, where lived those family
connections to whom it was clearly the girl's duty to say good-bye. The
old lady was quite inclined to enjoy the little stir of preparation
involved by the trip abroad, and would allow no one but herself to
interview the lady in whose charge her niece was to travel. That she
was entirely satisfied was the best possible guarantee for Sylvia's
safety, and Mistress Courier Rickman promised to be ready to start the
moment the expected wire was received.

Miss Munns laid in a store of patent medicines, stocked her niece's
workbox with every imaginable useful, and waxed quite affectionate in
her manner, but all the same it was easy to see that she would be
relieved to get rid of her charge, and settle down once more in the old
groove. It requires a great deal of forbearance and unselfish
imagination to enable a young person and an old to live together
happily, and the lack of these qualities is the explanation of many
miserable homes.

Old people should remember that the peaceful monotony which has become
their own idea of happiness, must by the laws of nature spell a very
different word to buoyant, restless youth, and also that there comes a
stage when the children are not children any longer, when they are
entitled to their own opinions, and may even--most reverently be it
said--understand what is best for themselves, better than thos