"Yes, I know. She won't have to wait long," he replied kindly, putting his arm around the child's shoulders.
Mrs. Lem, her hair strained back in its least decorative twist, fixed her offspring with black eyes that snapped.
"You're a-goin' to have a good time with Thinkright, ain't you, Minty?" she asked, and the child's breath caught through her little nose as she replied promptly:—
"Yes, I be."
Sylvia looked from one to the other uncertainly, but Thinkright was patting the little shoulder he held, and he nodded at her reassuringly.
"Run along, Sylvia. You'll find everything in good shape."
"I never saw such a man," thought the girl as she went down the hill. "How did he know that it would mean so much to me to go out alone just this first morning? Oh, Thinkright, Thinkright," she sighed. "How great it is to have come where you are; to have one's skylight always open, and the trap door always closed!"
She ran lightly in among the evergreens, and touched their bright buds here and there.
"That's right, precious things," she said, giving a lingering look up and down the familiar woodland path by the water side.
Then she came through the trees out upon the little dock beside her boathouse, and stood there, looking about with fond eyes at the broad sweep of the Basin waters. The snowy stems of the birches seemed alive as they swayed forward, waving their lustrous banners across the tide. She nodded in all directions, and kissed her hands to the encircling woods. "I'm exactly as glad to see you," she said; "and you shall sit to me for your pictures, all of you. Just as soon as"—