“Sylvia’s very quiet, but I reckon she takes everything in.  It’s in her eyes that she’s different.  And I guess that quietness means she’s got power locked up in her.  Children do show it.  Now Marian, my grandniece, is a different sort.  She’s a forthputting youngster that’s going to be hard to break to harness.  She looks pretty, grazing in the pasture and kicking up her heels, but I don’t see what class she’s going to fit into.  Now, Hallie,—­my niece, Mrs. Bassett,—­she’s one of these club fussers,—­always studying poetry and reading papers and coming up to town to state conventions or federations and speaking pieces in a new hat.  Hallie’s smart at it.  She was president of the Daughters once, by way of showing that our folks in North Carolina fought in the Revolution, which I reckon they did; though I never saw where Hallie proved it; but the speech I heard her make at the Propylaeum wouldn’t have jarred things much if it hadn’t been for Hallie’s feathers.  She likes her clothes—­she always had ’em, you know.  My brother Blackford left her a very nice fortune; and Morton Bassett makes money.  Well, as I started to say, there’s all kinds of women,—­the old ones like me that never went to school much, and Hallie’s kind, that sort o’ walked through the orchard and picked the nearest peaches, and then starts in at thirty to take courses in Italian Art, and Marian, who gives her teachers nervous prostration, and Sylvia, who takes to books naturally.”

“There are all kinds of girls, just as there are all kinds of boys.  Good students, real scholars have always been rare in the world—­men and women.  I should like to see Sylvia go high and far; I should like her to have every chance.”

“All right, Andrew; let’s do it.  How much does a college course cost for a girl?”

“I didn’t come here to interest you in the money side of it, Sally; I expected—­”

“Answer my question, Andrew.”

“I had expected to give her a four-year course for five thousand dollars.  The actual tuition isn’t so much; it’s railroad fare, clothing, and other expenses.”

Mrs. Owen turned towards Kelton with a smile on her kind, shrewd face.

“Andrew, just to please me, I want you to let me be partners with you in this.  What you’ve told me and what I’ve seen of that little girl have clinched me pretty strong.  I wish she was mine!  My little Elizabeth would be a grown woman if she’d lived; and because of her I like to help other people’s little girls; you know I helped start Elizabeth House, a home for working girls—­and I’m getting my money back on that a thousand times over.  It’s a pretty state of things if an old woman like me, without a chick of my own, and with no sense but horse sense, can’t back a likely filly like your Sylvia.  I want you to let me call her our Sylvia.  We’ll train her in all the paces, Andrew, and I hope one of us will live to see her strike the home stretch.  Come into my office a minute,” she said, rising and leading the way.