SYLVIA SEEKS AMUSEMENT It was a fine September afternoon and Sylvia reclined pensively in a canvas hammock on Herbert Lansing's lawn with one or two opened letters in her hand.

Bright sunshine lay upon the grass, but it was pleasantly cool in the shadow of the big copper beech.

A neighboring border glowed with autumn flowers: ribands of asters, spikes of crimson gladiolus, ranks of dahlias.

Across the lawn a Virginia creeper draped the house with vivid tints.

The scene had nothing of the grim bareness of the western prairie of which Sylvia was languidly thinking; her surroundings shone with strong color, and beyond them a peaceful English landscape stretched away.