"Isn't it," inquired Morrison, phrasing his question carefully, "isn't it, with no disrespect to La Chance intended, isn't it rather unusually good fortune for a smallish Western city to own a real musician?" "Well, La Chance bears up bravely under its good fortune," said Sylvia dryly. "Old Mr. Reinhardt isn't exactly a prime favorite there. He's a terribly beery old man, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve. Our house was the only respectable one in town that he could go into. But then, our house isn't so very respectable. It has its advantages, not being so very respectable, though it 'most killed me as a young girl to feel us so. But I certainly have a choice gallery of queer folks in my acquaintance, and I have the queerest hodge-podge of scraps of things learned from them. I know a little Swedish from Miss Lindström. She's a Swedish old maid who does uplift work among the negroes--isn't that a weird combination? You just ought to hear what she makes of negro dialect! And I know all the socialist arguments from hearing a socialist editor get them off every Sunday afternoon. And I even know how to manage planchette and write mediumistically--save the mark!--from Cousin Parnelia, a crazy old cousin of Mother's who hangs round the house more or less." "I begin to gather," surmised Morrison, "that you must have a remarkable father and mother. What are _they_ like?" "Well," said Sylvia thoughtfully, "Mother's the bravest thing you ever saw. She's not afraid of _anything_! I don't mean cows, or the house-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. I mean life and death, and sickness and poverty and fear...." Morrison nodded his head understandingly, a fine light of appreciation in his eyes, "Not to be afraid of fear--that's splendid." Sylvia went on to particularize. "When any of us are sick--it's my little brother Lawrence who is mostly--Judith and I are always well--Father just goes all to pieces, he gets so frightened. But Mother stiffens her back and _makes_ everything in the house go on just as usual, very quiet, very calm. She holds everything together _tight_. She says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to accept life at all, not to accept _all_ of it--the sour with the sweet--and not whimper." "Very fine,--very fine! Possibly a very small bit ... grim?" commented Morrison, with a rising inflection. "Oh, perhaps, a little!" agreed Sylvia, as if it did not matter; "but I can't give you any idea of Mother. She's--she's just _great_! And yet I couldn't live like her, without wanting to smash everything up. She's somebody that Seneca would have liked." "And your father?" queried Morrison.