“I will do what I can, Sylvia,” she said at last. “I will speak to your father. I think you ought to go.” The girl’s face grew radiant. “Oh, you’re an _angel_!” she cried. “What should I do without you? Speak to him soon, Miss Page!” she implored. “I can’t bear it any longer. I really can’t. I get on so badly with father now, and with mother too. I can’t help it. I know I’ve got an awful temper, but they irritate me so, and----” Anne sat down beside her on the sofa. “I will speak to your father,” she repeated. “But, my dear, I know it’s a hard, perhaps almost an impossible thing to ask you, but try to see your parents’ point of view as well as your own. They _have_ one, you know,” she added, smiling. “One that belongs to their age and the traditions of their education. To them, though you don’t believe it, their standpoint is as important as yours to you.” “But you think mine is right?” demanded Sylvia, breathlessly. Miss Page laughed. “For you, yes. But I’m sorry for your people.” “I believe you’re sorry for every one,” said Sylvia, after a pause. “There’s a tendency to get sorrier for most people as one gets older, I admit. You must bear with me, Sylvia.” The girl flushed. “Now you’re laughing at me,” she said. “No. Only remembering how I felt at your age, and being very sorry for you too.” “Ought I to see every one’s point of view as you do?” “You couldn’t. It’s not to be expected of you. And after all, it’s right that you shouldn’t. It’s the young who make history, and history is made by seeing one thing at a time to the exclusion of every other consideration. It’s only in the autumn of life that one has time to be sorry. But still my dear, you can be kind even without comprehension. Remember the immortal remark that our parents are fellow-creatures after all.” She looked at the girl whimsically, and Sylvia laughed. “How angry father would be to hear you say that!” she cried. “But you wouldn’t say it to him, of course,” she added. “You know it’s only nonsense; and there’s such a thing as tact, my dear.” “I know,” sighed Sylvia. “I haven’t got any.” “That’s another of the things that comes with age.” “All the nice things come with age, I believe.” “Well, age should have _some_ compensations,” returned Anne, gaily. “You have _all_ of them,” Sylvia declared. “All the pretty things that generally belong to girls, and all the interesting things that ought to belong to women. It isn’t fair. You know how to talk to every one. I should _love_ to hear what you say to father. It would be too amusing! Mrs. Dakin came in this morning, and said you were wonderful with the Frenchman who dined here last night. And the way you talk to Dr. Dakin is quite different from the way you talk to father. And of course, you’re quite different with me again. You always remind me of that verse in the Bible about being all things to all men!”