"I think I'll climb one of those trees," said Sylvia. "She looks too glad to see me."
Minty laughed aloud, and running to the white cow threw her arms around her neck.
"Now then, introduce us," said Sylvia. "This is Miss Daisy Foster, I believe. So happy not to meet you, my dear! Please don't look as if you were going to rush into my arms the minute Minty lets go."
Minty laughed delightedly.
"I guess you'd better git back of her, Miss Lacey. When I untie her she might fall foul of yer and never mean to, she's so anxious for the barn."
Sylvia skipped toward the pines with alacrity. The sea wind and the situation had brought color into her cheeks.
"Why, the cow is anchored!" she exclaimed; for she perceived an ancient anchor at her feet to which that end of the rope was fastened.
"Yes. Daisy can't drag her anchor," returned Minty, her fingers busy with the knot at the cow's neck, "though she'd like to lots o' times. There now, Bossy, don't act so drove. I know it's later'n common, but I had a good reason, and 'tain't thinkin' right to be impatient." With the last word the rope fell free, and as the cow gave a bound Minty clung to its horns, and was carried forward, her feet scarcely touching the grass. Sylvia's heart leaped to her throat for a moment, but Minty's delighted laugh came back to her, and the guest laughed, too, at the child's antics.
Minty, glowing with superiority, could not resist this prime opportunity to make an impression, so went on with the romp as familiar to her as a more sedate method of locomotion, and finally the cow's gyrations carried her out of sight, leaving Sylvia alone and happy under the pine trees.
"Isn't it the strangest thing in the world that I should be here?" she thought, looking about. A memory returned to her of the cheap boarding-house in Springfield where her father breathed his last; of the worries that followed his decease; of her hurried journey; of the shock dealt her in Boston; of the stranger-cousin descending, as it were, out of the clouds to bear her up from the lowlands of mortification and hurt, to where the sea winds chased dull care away. The future troubled Sylvia very little. The thorn in the present was that Judge Trent owned this soft, grassy knoll on which she stood, owned that straight, symmetrical balsam fir yonder whose bright green tips full of the new life of spring were breathing balm on the air; owned the gambrel roof under which was her inviting chamber. Did he know she was here? She could not remember what her cousin had said about that. Mr. Dunham had sent for Thinkright. Yes, now she remembered: Judge Trent had told him to send, doubtless to ease his conscience; to get her out of sight, and yet to know that his sister's child was safe.