Logs blazed merrily in the great fireplace. Sylvia found a feast of many courses in the illustrations of the magazines. Edna was interested to see her discrimination.
"Oh, I remember," she said. "Miss Lacey told me your father was an artist."
Miss Martha was sitting by the fire darning stockings, and at this she gave an involuntary alert glance at her niece where she sat with Edna by the round table, her head bent above one of the periodicals.
"My father never learned to apply himself. He was not deeply interested in his work," replied Sylvia. The blue eyes looked up into Edna's dark ones. "No one ever taught my father how to think right," she added.
"I see," returned Miss Derwent; "but your interest must have been a great help to him."
"No, I was never any help to him. As I look back I seem to myself to have been only a chrysalis. I had eyes and saw not, and ears and heard not. I only began to live when I came to the Mill Farm. Poor father!"
Edna's eyes were soft. "I understand," she said.
Miss Lacey did not understand, but she suspected. She saw the look that passed between the two girls, and remembered Thinkright's peculiar views and Edna's adherence to them.
"'Tisn't doing Sylvia any harm, anyway," she reflected, "and I know she'll never have a disloyal thought of her father," and she pulled another stocking over her hand.
"Well, you are interested now, certainly," remarked Edna, increasingly surprised at the girl's perception of the quality of the work of the various artists, combined with such comparative ignorance of their names and reputations.