Now she seemed a child on whom the world pressed heavily before her time for suffering had come; she had so motherless a look.

Even Garratt Skinner moved uncomfortably in his chair; even that iron man was stirred.
"I, too, am sorry, Sylvia," he said, gently; "but we will make the best of it.

Between us"-- and he laughed gaily, setting aside from him his momentary compassion--"we will teach poor Wallie Hine a little geography, won't we ?" Sylvia had no smile ready for a reply.

But she bowed her head, and into her face and her very attitude there came an expression of patience.

She turned and opened the door, and as she opened it, and stood with her back toward her father, she said in a quiet and clear voice, "Very well," and so passed up the stairs to her room.
It might, after all, merely be kindness in her father which had led him to insist on Wallie Hine's visit.