"
"No, I do not like it, and I am very sorry to hear it."
"My dear sir," said she, "you must be early on hand and prompt in action
to be Number One with a girl like Sylvia; but then, you know, a Number
One seldom counts. In this case, however, he did count, for he made a
Number Two impossible."
"Not so," I cried hotly. "I am Number Two, and shall always continue
so."
She laughed. "I am afraid," she said, "that it will be necessary for a
brother of the House of Martha to get rid of that sort of feeling."
"How was she thwarted?" I asked quickly.
"The story is briefly this," replied Miss Laniston: "A certain gentleman
courted Sylvia's cousin, and everybody supposed they would be married;
but in some way or other he treated her badly, and the match was broken
off; then, a few years later, this same person fell in love with Sylvia,
who knew nothing of the previous affair. The young girl found him a most
attractive lover, and he surely would have won her had not her mother
stepped in and put an extinguisher upon the whole affair. She knew what
had happened before, and would not have the man in her family. Then it
was that Sylvia found the world a blank, and concluded to enter the
sisterhood."
"Do you mean," I asked, "that the cousin with whom the man was first in
love was Marcia Raynor, Mother Anastasia?"
"Yes," answered Miss Laniston, "it was she.
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