"Yes," she nodded. "He was aiming high."
Miss Lacey kept her sharp eyes on the conscious young face, devoured with curiosity.
"Tell us the joke, Sylvia," she begged.
"It isn't a joke, it's earnest," returned the girl, and a warm feeling arose in her heart for the eagle-eyed man in the high hat. "Did you ever hear of anything so surprising, Thinkright, and so kind?"
"He told me he was going to order it when he went away," responded her cousin; then he turned toward Miss Lacey. "Calvin found this child of ours trying to learn to row in an old general utility tub I have down at the basin, and he thought she deserved better things."
The speaker looked at Sylvia, who came close to him and took hold of his hand, while she continued to look at her new possession.
It was Love expressed to her again; and the guest she had tried with gentleness to win, sweet Humility, sank deeper into her heart, and sent up a note of gratitude that she had not a few minutes ago tried to punish Aunt Martha by word or look and so embittered this moment.
"It's amazing, simply amazing in Calvin!" thought Miss Martha. "She must have bewitched him, and what could he have meant by 'The Rosy Cloud,' and why should she blush over it?"
Thinkright walked to the house with the visitor a few minutes later, while Cap'n Lem stayed to put up the horses and Sylvia lingered to examine her light oars.
"Calvin's outdone himself," remarked Miss Martha. "He must have taken a great fancy to her."