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eye; the music of the woods found echo in her The tall folios and massive

merry voice.

quartos in the Squire's library were not inviting in comparison with God's own print. She preferred the fir woods-tall spires of foliage above a carpet of moss.

Little Silvia got on excellent well with her brother; but, being a year of time older than he, she was several years older in development. When she was fourteen, let us say, she thought herself quite a young lady, whereas Silvester was still a boy, with no notions of being "stuck up," and with a tendency to eat bread and cheese with a clasp knife. Brother and sister part company just at this point. The girl is quick; the boy is slow. The girl has fancies, dreams, visions,-all vague and intangible, but full of a strange enticement. The boy

plods quietly along; eats and drinks, and does his lessons; thinks his sister rather cracked than otherwise. She, in fact, enters the world earlier than he does; she puts on her butterfly

plumage when he is tramping along through the Latin lanes of Propria quæ maribus; she often appears in the ballroom, a vision of beauty, just when he is mildly requested by a mastigophorous head master to take down his pantaloons. But the sexual reflex is reversed in time: the boy becomes a master, and the girl a slave. There are doubtless reasons, psychological and physiological, for these odd contrasts, but nobody seems to have discovered what they are.

Silvia Silchester had not many friends of her own sex, since the village did not supply any of the class with whom she could associate. Hence she was somewhat lonely except when in her brother's company. It may be questioned whether a girl thus educated is not more fortunate in her isolation than if she associated with many others. Silvia lived alone. She thought for herself. She enjoyed the sea-surf and wood-whirl. She became familiar with Nature, her true mother, and learnt something

of the mysteries which lie around us always and everywhere. Go into a wood at midday or at midnight: be still, and listen: you will find that there are others there whom you cannot see, and that if the fairies do not show themselves, it is because they do not like you.

Silvia loved the woods and streams. Silvia saw fairies. Silvia knew the voice of the naiad in the brook. Silvia had seen dryads, once or twice. So Silvia was not at all annoyed when on that June day, when the silvan screen was perfect delight, she found herself face to face with a handsome boy who might have been Ganymede.

The boy blushed-Silvia did not. They looked into one another's eyes. The boy could not have told the colour of Silvia's five minutes after.

"I hope you will forgive me," he said. "Can you tell me the way to Silchester?"

"I will show you the way," she replied. "I live at Silchester. Will you come with me?"

Boy and girl walked together. He was a good-looking young fellow, Silvia thought, but rather shorter than she fancied. What could

he want at Silchester?

This question was soon answered when he reached the house. He was the housekeeper's nephew. Silvia made up her pretty little mind never again to be too courteous to strangers. At the same time, she held that if she had made a mistake, it was on the right side.

Politeness is a power.

CHAPTER VII.

SILVESTER.

"Silvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena."

ILVESTER SILCHESTER turned out a poet; a doom deplorable, but not surprising, all things considered. His father taught him all that he knew in rhythmical form: no wonder the boy imagined rhythm the natural mould of thought. Probably the Squire might have modified his process of education, had he known what would be its result. He knew well enough the fate of poets; that some blindness has seized, and some madness, and all poverty. It never

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