"No, even though he is her uncle," he said. "Strange state of things, isn't it?"
"Her uncle, and Miss Lacey her aunt?" returned Miss Derwent. "I never knew they were related."
"They aren't. It's the two sides of the house, you see."
"Miss Sylvy's the missin' link," put in Cap'n Lem, softly slapping his knee and shaking his head while his eyes closed tightly. "Don't look it, does she?"
"Now, Cap'n, don't git another spell o' the shallers," put in Mrs. Lem as the old man's chuckles threatened a crescendo.
"But you see I got ahead of the other relations," went on Thinkright. "I am her mother's cousin, and I put in my claim first."
"Oh, you'll like Judge Trent so much," said Edna, looking at the grave face in its aureole of curls. "He is a dear, but nobody dares to tell him so. By the way, Thinkright," the quaint name fell charmingly from the girl's lips as she turned to him, "I hear that a man I used to know, a Mr. Dunham, has gone into Judge Trent's office."
"So you know Dunham, do you?" returned her host.
"Yes, for a long time we saw a great deal of each other. Then Harvard for him and Vassar for me drifted us apart, but we have a lot of mutual friends, and while I was in New York the past winter a girl wrote me mournfully of his departure from Boston."
"I don't blame her for mourning," said Thinkright kindly,—"do you, Sylvia?" turning to the young girl, who was mortified to feel her color mounting again. "Sylvia knows Mr. Dunham."