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By Clara Louise Burnham

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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.

SYLVIA
From a drawing by Harrison Fisher

THE OPENED SHUTTERS

A Novel

by

Clara Louise Burnham

With Frontispiece by
Harrison Fisher

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1906

COPYRIGHT 1906 BY CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published October 1906

TO

C. D. T.

CONTENTS

THE OPENED SHUTTERS

[ ]

CHAPTER I

JUDGE TRENT

Judge Trent's chair was tipped back at a comfortable angle for the accommodation of his gaitered feet, which rested against the steam radiator in his private office. There had been a second desk introduced into this sanctum within the last month, and the attitude of the young man seated at it indicated but a brief suspension of business as he looked up to greet his employer.

The judge had just come in out of the cold and wet, and did not remove his silk hat as he seated himself to dry his shoes. He appeared always reluctant to remove that hat. Spotlessly clean as were always the habiliments that clothed his attenuated form, no one could remember having seen the judge's hat smoothly brushed; and although in the course of thirty years it is unlikely that he never became possessed of a new one, even the closest observer, and that was Martha Lacey, could not be certain of the transition period, probably owing to the lingering attachment with which the judge returned spasmodically to the headgear which had accommodated itself to his bumps, and which he was heroically endeavoring to discard.

This very morning Miss Lacey in passing her old friend on the street had been annoyed by the unusually rough condition of the hat he lifted. A few steps further on she happened to encounter the judge's housekeeper, her market basket on her arm. Old Hannah's wrinkled countenance did not grow less grim as Miss Lacey greeted her, but that lady, nothing daunted, stopped to speak, her countenance alert and her bright gaze shining through her eyeglasses.

"I just met Judge Trent, Hannah. Dear me, can't you brush that hat of his a little? It looks for all the world like a black cat that has just caught sight of a mastiff."

"I guess the judge knows how he wants his own hat," returned Hannah, her mouth working disapprovingly.

"But he doesn't realize how it looks. Some one asked me the other day if I supposed Judge Trent slept in his hat."

"And I s'pose you told 'em you didn't know," returned the old woman sourly. "He's got a right to sleep in it if he wants to," and she moved on while Miss Lacey looked after her for a moment, her lips set in a tight line.

"Insolent!" she exclaimed. "All is I know he wouldn't do it if I'd married him," she added mentally, resuming her walk. Martha Lacey's sense of humor was not keen, but suddenly the mental picture of Judge Trent's shrewd, thin countenance, as it might appear in pillowed slumber surmounted by the high hat, overwhelmed her and she laughed silently. Then she frowned with reddening cheeks. "Hannah's impertinent," she murmured.

Judge Trent had read something of disapproval in Miss Lacey's glance as she greeted him a few minutes ago, and he thought of her now as he sat tilted back, his thumbs hooked easily in his arm holes, while he watched the glistening dampness dry from his shoes.

"Martha probably disapproved because I didn't have on my rubbers," he thought, an inward jerk acknowledging the humor of the situation. He had not spoken often with Martha Lacey for many a year. Twenty-five springs had rolled by now since he proposed to her. She had hesitated for a week or so, and then, some difference arising between them, she had refused him. He had led a busy life since then, absorbed in his profession of the law, and had won more than local fame. When recently he decided to take some one into his office and, as he put it, ease up on himself, John Dunham, Harvard graduate, recently admitted to the bar, thought himself a lucky man to get the position even though it exchanged Boston for life in a neighboring rural city.

"Plenty of trains for Boston every day," Judge Trent had said when the young fellow arrived. "If either one of us doesn't like the arrangement you can take one any hour, and no harm done."

That was less than a month ago, but already Calvin Trent had changed his mind. Should he lose young Dunham, he would regret it.

He regarded John now as the clean-shaven profile bent over a lengthy document. The judge had the small man's admiration for the stature and build of his assistant. He liked the sunshine of his smile, the steady gaze of his eyes. The young man's personality had impressed him from the first; but it was after the judge had proved the temper of his mind and quickness of his perception that he allowed these physical advantages to take their place as valuable assets.

"The boy's well born, and well raised," he said to himself. "I suppose he's some kind of a fool, he's too young not to be; but there's no sign of it yet."

It was very pleasant not to have to hurry to the office in the morning, and not to be obliged to furnish all the brains that were supposed to be accessible in this home of the law.

After a few minutes' silence Judge Trent looked up again from his steaming shoes.

"Ever been in love, Dunham?" he asked suddenly.

The young lawyer raised his eyes, with evident effort to bring his attention from the subject in hand, and regarded the quaint face and figure of his employer.

The vagueness of his stare caused the judge to stir and cough with some embarrassment.

"Oh, no matter, of course. I just happened to think of it. When I was your age I had it bad: thought if I couldn't have that one girl life wouldn't be worth living." The speaker's foot slipped on the radiator, and he readjusted his chair.

"Just happened to meet her out there a minute ago;" he jerked the tall hat in the direction of the street.

"That must have been rather startling." Dunham had by this time collected his ideas.

"Oh, no. We've both always lived here; she's kept tab on me ever since; kind of puts the burden of proof on me to show that I can get along without her, if you understand."

"And you've shown her, eh?"

"'M, pretty so-so."

"You've never married, I believe?"

John did not have to assume an interest. This spare little man was small only in physique. He was an object of interest to any and every ambitious young lawyer.

"No, never did." Judge Trent shook his head, and rocked his tilted chair gently. "I might count up the number of kitchen fires I've escaped building on cold winter mornings; the number of nocturnal rambles I've escaped taking with shrieking infants doubled up with the colic—and then there are my books! What would have become of my books! My fair one was the pizen-neat kind. She would have dusted them and driven me to drink!"

Dunham smiled. "And yet those are scarcely facts with which you can reassure her," he remarked.

Judge Trent caught the younger man's eye with a sympathetic twinkle.

"Precisely; and the sad consequence is that she has never been entirely reassured. Her name's against her, poor girl—Martha. Careful about many things."

"Then you had no successor?"

"No, and affairs piled up. I had too much to attend to to renew the attack. I didn't have time to smooth down her ruffled feathers, so—the result is that we've each flocked alone. Just as well, just as well," continued the speaker, musingly. "What I was thinking of just now was how many different lives we seem to live in one; how our tastes change; and at best how few illusions are left to lawyers regarding marriage."

"In other words, you're a confirmed old bachelor. What was it you asked me a minute ago—if I were in love?"

"Yes, or if you had been."

"Have been dozens of times,—am not," returned Dunham, with the smile that his employer liked.

"Just so, just so," the latter answered quickly. "We change. Read First Corinthians, seventh chapter, and if you take Paul's advice and don't pass the Rubicon, then you 'll be free to change as often as you please."

Dunham looked up again. "Are you a Bible student, Judge Trent?"

"Student of everything," returned the lawyer, with a short wave of his thin hand.

"All books except woman's looks, eh?" answered Dunham, returning to his papers.

"I said I had no successors," remarked the judge, regarding his gaiters musingly. "I'm not at all sure of that. Miss—Martha was a very attractive woman. My impression is that in any case she preferred to concentrate all her faculties upon watching to see that I didn't get into mischief."

"That's faithfulness, I'm sure," returned Dunham. "The necessity for building those kitchen fires wouldn't exist now," he added suggestively.

"Young man, no levity," returned the judge.

There was silence for a few minutes, broken only by the turning of the crisp papers as Dunham continued his researches. At last the telephone bell rang and Dunham answered it. As he hung up the receiver Judge Trent spoke:—

"Just call up the railway station, will you, and secure a chair for me in the nine o'clock train for Boston Wednesday morning?"

John obeyed, and as he returned to his desk his employer continued:—

"I may need your advice on Wednesday's business, Dunham."

"My advice?" returned the young man, with interest. "Is it in the Evans case?"

"No," dryly; "it isn't in the Evans case. It's a case of a girl." The judge scowled at his gaiters and pushed his hat askew. "Hang it, I don't know anything about girls."

The young lawyer waited, his elbows on his desk.

"Anything that I can do, of course," he said at last.

"Have you any sisters?"

"No."

"Confound you," returned the other impatiently. "What do you know about it, then?"

"Nearly all there is to know," responded Dunham modestly.

"The conventionalities, the proprieties? Where and how girls may live and where and how they can't, for instance? Unattached girls whose relatives don't want them, for I'd like to bet her aunt won't receive her, and if I should go out of my way to urge it she'd probably turn on me and tell me to take my own medicine."

"I'd do my best," returned John, when the exasperated tones had subsided.

"What's the use of obeying St. Paul if your family won't?" went on the lawyer irritably. "What's the good of avoiding girls of your own, only to have somebody else's dumped on you?"

"Be calm, Judge," said Dunham, smiling. "I felt a little stage fright when I thought it was the Evans case; but if it's only girls, I can attend to them with one hand tied behind me."

Judge Trent regarded him wistfully. "John, do you know what you're saying? Isn't yours the presumption of ignorance?"

"What? when I told you I had been in love a dozen times? To be sure, I never met those who've hit me hardest; but cheer up, Judge, I'll stand by you. What is it?"

"I'm not quite ready to say what it is. I'll fence with Fate by myself awhile longer." As he spoke Calvin Trent took from his pocket a letter and began to read it over once more.

"Very well," returned Dunham, picking up his papers. "I'm ready to act as your second."

The following day Miss Martha Lacey locked the door of her cottage behind her and set off for the business district of the town. Her hair was carefully arranged and her bonnet was becoming. Her neighbors were wont to say with admiration that Martha Lacey, though she did live alone and was poor in kith, kin, and worldly fortune, never lost her ambition. She kept an eye to the styles as carefully as the rosiest belle in town.

"There isn't any sense in a woman letting herself look queer," Miss Lacey often declared. "I don't mean to look queer."

"It's real sensible of Martha to do as she does," said one neighbor to the new minister's wife. "She jilted the smartest man in town when she was young and she's kept on looking the part, as you might say, ever since. If she'd let herself run down, kind of seedy, everybody'd have said she was disappointed; but he hasn't ever married—it's Judge Trent, you know—and the way Martha holds her head up and wears gold eyeglasses sort of makes folks think he'd be glad to get her any time. It's real smart of Martha. The judge looks the seedy one. He never did carry much flesh, but now he's dried up till he ain't much bigger'n a grasshopper; but smart—Martha's smartness ain't to speak of beside his. They do say he's as well known in Boston as he is here."

There was an extra determination in Miss Lacey's walk as she moved along this morning, the watery spring sunshine beaming on the well-brushed gray tailor gown she had bought ready-made at a sale a year ago. She was on her way to the law offices of Calvin Trent, a rare errand indeed and one which, if observed by acquaintances, she knew would even now "make talk;" but she did not falter, nor look to the right or left as she at last entered the dingy doorway and ascended the worn staircase.

Scarcely pausing before the black-lettered door, she walked into the anteroom, and apparently her entrance sent a communication to the inner office; for while she stood for a moment looking dubiously at the uninviting chairs, a tall young man entered the room. Miss Lacey viewed him with curiosity and surprise.

He greeted her courteously and brought forward one of the chairs. She wiped the finger of her gray glove along its edge and examined it.

"I guess you don't have ladies here much," she remarked dryly.

"Oh, is it dusty?" he returned, pulling out his handkerchief with a sudden jerk and wiping the broken cane seat.

"Here's another place;" she pointed an accusing gray finger.

Dunham obediently dusted and she lowered her person gingerly upon the chair.

"Now don't you put that dirty thing back in your pocket," she said, and the young man paused midway in the act, and finally laid the handkerchief on the gray mantelpiece.

"You don't receive many ladies here, I imagine," repeated Miss Lacey, her nostrils dilating.

"No, very few," returned Dunham, flushed. "What can I do for you, madam?"

"Nothing, I guess, except dust the chair. I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for that and I'm sorry that you took your nice handkerchief. You ought to have some soft cheesecloth here."

"I'll—mention it," said Dunham. "May I ask your business?"

"No, you may not," returned Miss Martha equably. "Is Judge Trent in?"

The young lawyer collected himself. "I represent Judge Trent," he said briefly.

"Not to me you don't, young man," rejoined the visitor coolly.

They regarded each other for a moment.

"I wish to see Judge Trent," said Martha at last.

"He is very busy; but if you will tell me the nature of"—

"Busy? So am I," returned Miss Lacey brusquely, "and if you imagine that I am going to climb up to this office and then leave it without seeing the judge you're mistaken. You might give me something to read if he'll be long."

"Do you think you would care for Blackstone?" asked the young lawyer. "There isn't much choice here."

"I shouldn't mind looking at it. I've always known that a little common sense would revise the law so that a lot of this absurd red tape could be cut out."

"Then the world has been waiting for you many years; Mrs.—Mrs."—

"Not at all," returned the visitor; "I'm not Mrs. You go into the office, please, and tell Judge Trent that Miss Martha Lacey would like to see him on important business."

Dunham nodded; but his head had scarcely regained the perpendicular when the name began to impress him. "Martha." "Pizen-neat." He bit his lip, and without venturing again to meet Miss Lacey's cool, incisive gaze he turned and vanished into the inner office.

[ ]

CHAPTER II

MARTHA LACEY

Judge Trent was sitting at his desk scowling at his work with concentration when his assistant tiptoed to his side, his face sternly repressed and his eyes dancing.

"Miss Martha Lacey wishes to see you, Judge."

The latter looked up with such suddenness as to endanger the situation of the high hat. "Who?" he demanded.

"Sh!" advised Dunham. "Miss Martha Lacey."

Judge Trent placed his hand on his assistant's arm as he stared up at him. "I guess you got the name wrong, Boy," he returned, in a hushed tone.

The young lawyer shook his head solemnly, but his lips refused solemnity. "Miss Martha Lacey," he repeated slowly.

His senior frowned. "These offices are badly planned, Dunham, badly planned. There is no back entrance."

"Exit, do you mean?" asked the other.

"What are you doing in here?" demanded the judge sternly, but careful not to raise his voice. "It was your place to find out her business."

"That's what I thought. In fact, I told her so."

"Well, what is it, then? You go back. I empower you to act." As Judge Trent spoke he pushed his young colleague with one bony hand.

"She won't have me," gurgled Dunham in a whisper. "She's going to wait for you till the last trump, and while she's waiting she says she'll revise Blackstone."

The judge did not smile. He suddenly relaxed throughout his slight frame. "That's Martha," he replied, "you haven't made any mistake. And she'd do it. Very capable woman. Very capable woman. Dunham, I want you to understand," he continued, as he rose and straightened himself, "that I respect that lady very highly."

"Oh, I do understand," responded Dunham. "She's a bright, observant woman. She found the chairs dusty." He drew in his breath in a noiseless whistle.

The little man looked up alertly under his shaggy brows. "They were dusty, I dare say. You cleaned one for her, eh?"

"Yes, with my handkerchief. She didn't like it."

"Oh, no, she wouldn't like that. You are quite sure there'd be no use in your going back again and trying to find out what she—a—eh?"

"Aren't you quite sure?" Dunham stood with his feet apart and a broad grin on his countenance.

The judge rose and shook himself.

"I've got those papers ready, Dunham. It might be well for you to take them over to the office and register them; and as you pass through you may ask Miss Lacey to step in here."

John Dunham composed his countenance, took his hat and the papers, and started on his errand.

Entering the outer room, he paused before Miss Lacey to give his message, and she lifted a small paper parcel that lay in her lap.

"Don't be worried about your handkerchief," she said. "I'm going to take it home and wash it."

"Oh, I beg you won't trouble yourself," exclaimed the young man.

"I shall. You soiled it for me."

Dunham bit his lip. The query flitted through his mind as to whether Miss Lacey had ever been successfully contradicted.

"When Sir Walter Raleigh flung down his coat for a queen to walk upon, history doesn't say that Elizabeth sent it to the dry-cleaners," he remarked.

"That just shows how different two old maids can act," returned Miss Lacey.

Dunham laughed and bowed. "I don't believe the difference would continue throughout," he said. "I fancy you and Queen Bess have lots of points in common."

With this he took his departure, and Martha Lacey rose and passed into the inner room where Judge Trent waited, grimly wondering at that burst of laughter which he saw reflected on his visitor's lips as she entered.

She advanced and shook hands with him. "How do you do, Calvin? That isn't any fool you've taken into your office."

"Won't you have a chair?" offering Dunham's. "I wasn't looking for a fool when I engaged him. Perhaps that explains it."

"You have your hat on, Calvin," remarked Miss Lacey, as she accepted the seat after an investigating sweep of her gloved finger.

"I beg your pardon," returned the disconcerted lawyer, removing his hat and setting it reluctantly on his desk. Then he, too, sat down, passing his hand over his scanty locks.

"Your furniture in the next room is shockingly soiled," she went on. "Why don't you have Hannah come with some good flannel rags and tepid water and ivory soap and furniture polish?"

"It is so old, I don't believe it's worth the trouble," returned the judge pacifically.

"Well, it isn't my place to say you ought to have new; but do look at it the next time you go out there. I've come, Calvin, to see if you've heard about Sam."

Judge Trent settled his head in his neck as though bracing himself. "I learned of it yesterday, Martha. Pray accept my condolences. I should have called on you this evening."

"Excuse me," returned Miss Lacey somewhat tartly, "if I say I don't believe it; and I don't blame you, either. You know very well that there was no more love lost between my brother and me than there was between your brother-in-law and you. Sam didn't make your sister Laura happy, to my shame and sorrow. I'm the one that owes you condolences, and have any time this twenty years."

"Say ten," returned the judge concisely. "Laura's troubles have been over for nearly ten years."

"So they have, poor Laura! I used to think that it was such a beautiful thing that Sam had such an artistic temperament; but how seldom it goes with the practical! Poor Sam had just enough talent to tempt him away from a useful business life, and not enough to make his family comfortable. How I do hope his daughter hasn't inherited his happy-go-lucky, selfish nature; for there is that girl for us to deal with, Calvin." Martha Lacey flashed an anxious look at her vis-a-vis.

"Sam's girl, yes," returned the lawyer. His face had become expressionless. His shoulders had humped forward. He reminded his companion of some animal who instinctively draws itself together to avoid the enemy's detection. So a tree-toad clings against the bark. So a porcupine rolls itself into a ball. To Miss Lacey the latter simile would have been more appealing. She dreaded the arrows he could launch.

"Sam's girl, yes; but Laura's girl, too, Calvin."

"Well?" he responded non-committally, and his face and figure seemed incapable of moving a muscle.

"I couldn't go 'way out to Illinois to the funeral even if I'd known in time," said Miss Lacey plaintively. "I couldn't think of affording it, and I wrote Sylvia so."

"Then you have been in correspondence with her?" asked the lawyer, and his cold manner appeared to seize an advantage.

"No, I haven't," responded Martha quickly. "It wasn't till Sam's life was despaired of that she wrote to me, as in duty bound. Of course I answered her; but do you believe, Calvin Trent, before my letter had time to get there—I wasn't very prompt—she wrote again, and said it was all over and some friends were paying her expenses to Boston, and she'd be here on Tuesday."

Miss Lacey leaned back in her chair and looked desperately for a sign of life in the stony countenance before her.

"Well?" responded the judge, after a pause.

"Well, what?" she retorted, in a tense voice. "I've no doubt she's as slipshod—as easy-going, I should say, as her father. The idea of her not waiting for advice from her relatives before she took such a step and came to a strange land uninvited; but she's our flesh and blood, Calvin, and she's in her teens yet. What are you going to do about it?"

Judge Trent was humped over more defensively than ever. Miss Lacey's nervous tension could not endure the prolonging of the silence with which he met the question.

"No doubt it comes suddenly on you, Calvin. Still, you say you heard of Sam's death. Did Sylvia write you?"

"Yes."

"Did she tell you she was coming to Boston?"

"Yes."

"Have you got an idea in this world, Calvin Trent, what she's going to do?"

"No, have you?"

It was something to have won a question from him. Miss Martha stirred in her chair.

"No, I haven't. It is easy to see how her friends thought it would be cheapest to pay her fare here and get her off their hands. Now I thought I'd go to Boston Wednesday morning instead of sending for her to come here, for if she once gets in here it'll be every one's business to nose into our affairs and have something to say." Miss Lacey paused a moment and then added boldly: "And I thought if you would go with me, we could find out just what she has to live on, if anything, and whether she has any plans."

The humped-over figure continued to gaze silently into space.

"It would be hypocrisy for me to say I have any affection for an absolute stranger just because she happens to be the child of a brother who never was any comfort to me in this world. With you it may be different," continued Miss Lacey, with what she intended to be adroitness. "Laura was a dear little thing, and you loved her, and this is her child."

Another pause. It was doubtful what thoughts were behind Judge Trent's half-closed eyes.

"My affairs aren't any more brilliant and promising as the years go by," pursued Miss Lacey. "You know as well as I do what condition I'm in to adopt Sam's girl."

She suddenly dashed some bright drops from her lashes. Indignant tears they were, brought there by the apparent futility of her appeals.

"By the way," said the judge slowly, "that visit of condolence I was intending to make on you was to be one of congratulation as well."

Martha paused, her handkerchief poised in air.

"Yes; that unfortunate investment of yours turned out all right after all. At least I secured your principal for you."

The surprised, glad color came into Martha's face. "How in the world did you manage that, Calvin!" she ejaculated.

"I'll send you the papers and cash very soon."

"I don't know how to thank you. I really don't," stammered the visitor.

She had been very angry with her erstwhile lover a minute ago. The revulsion of feeling bewildered her.

The judge rose, and she found herself following his example.

"You haven't told me a word what your judgment is about the girl," she said, rather pitifully.

He nodded. "Your judgment will be the best. A woman is worth two men in such a case. Carry out your plan, Martha. Interview her, and then we'll see—we'll see."

He held open the office door for his visitor to pass out, and woman-like her memory flew back. It seemed but yesterday that this man was hanging on her looks, pleading for her love.

A fleeting glance at his expressionless face as he waited for her to pass him was enough. Again her eyes swept the dingy anteroom. "Good-by, Calvin, it's been a relief to talk to you," she said.

They shook hands. "If I'd married him," thought Miss Lacey, "that room wouldn't look like that."

The judge softly closed the door behind her. "There, but for the grace of God," he murmured devoutly, "goes Mrs. Calvin Trent." Then he returned to his desk, put on his hat, and sat down at his work.

Before long Dunham returned. His employer beckoned him with a long, bony finger.

The young man's eyes glistened, and he tiptoed forward obediently.

"What's the matter with you?" uneasily. "She—the lady has gone?"

"Certainly, Judge. I saw her just now disappearing up the street."

"Well, listen. I have decided not to go to Boston Wednesday morning. You will go in my place."

"Yes?"

"Miss Lacey is going on the same train."

"Ah," Dunham nodded slowly and with becoming gravity.

"You will have a seat in the parlor car. She will not have. Martha would think that nonsense; but her errand will be at the same place as yours. My sister married her brother. Both are dead, and they have left a daughter who has come out of the West to Boston to seek us. I suspect there may be a good deal of wool clinging to her."

"A lamb, of course," murmured Dunham.

"The disposition of this girl is costing Miss Lacey considerable worry, and me quite as much, although I don't think best to let Martha know it. I intended to go to the hotel to meet her myself; but"—

The younger man smiled, and the judge saw that he understood.

"I shall prepare some memoranda for you. What I am ready to buy is peace. You understand? You will be cautious, and not let me in for anything except perhaps immediate expenses. Follow Miss Lacey's lead; but let her lead. Eh?"

"Certainly, Judge Trent. As I said before, I can manage this with one hand tied behind me. It isn't as if it were the Evans case."

"The Evans case!" Judge Trent growled scornfully. "The Evans case is a bagatelle to this. Now you see to it that you're wise as a serpent in this matter. First and foremostly, and last and lastly, I won't have that girl in my house. Understand?"

"Oh, surely. I understand."

"Let Miss Lacey make the decisions and you be cautious."

"Ay, ay, Judge," returned Dunham airily.

[ ]

CHAPTER III

A RAILWAY TRIP

The speculator on a large scale feels no more elated over the rescue of a fortune from anticipated loss than did Miss Lacey in the recovery of her one thousand dollars. In the expansion of ideas which it caused she determined to celebrate by taking a chair in the parlor car for Boston on Wednesday morning.

John Dunham boarded the train just as it was pulling out of the station, and as he approached his seat suddenly heard himself greeted:—

"It is Sir Walter," said a pleased voice. "I wasn't sure till you took your hat off."

The young man paused in the act of hanging up his hat and looked down upon the occupant of the next chair. She was regarding him with interest.

"Why, good-morning, Miss Lacey," he responded, and perhaps his smile would not have been so pronounced but for the quick consideration of Judge Trent's situation had he not transferred his ticket this morning.

Dunham even wondered if Miss Lacey might not have learned in some way who it was that had engaged this chair and made her arrangements accordingly. However, the surprise with which she recognized him was certainly genuine.

"Aren't these seats comfortable?" she went on as he sank into his. "I never traveled in one before. I'm just being reckless this morning."

Her triumphant, half-defiant regard did not indicate that she was laboring under any disappointment.

Upon Dunham's acquiescence she continued: "Perhaps, being in the office, you know about my windfall?"

"I hadn't heard, but I'm glad there was a windfall."

Miss Martha scrutinized the speaker's countenance approvingly. "He's about as pleasant-looking a man as I ever laid eyes on," she thought.

"It isn't exactly a windfall, because it's only my own come back to me; but it's money I never expected to see again, and if Cal—if Judge Trent wasn't a good deal smarter than the average I never should have, either."

"Not many people can get ahead of him," returned Dunham.

"I guess not," said Miss Lacey, and she bridled proudly in a manner not lost upon her neighbor. "So I just said to myself this morning, 'What's the use of always being so careful?' Said I, 'I believe I'll see for once how it feels to go to Boston like a nabob.'"

Dunham smiled and nodded, perceiving that Miss Martha felt that her extravagance must be explained even if it could not be justified.

The extra alertness of her look suffered a slight cloud as she continued: "One thing that made me feel reckless was that affairs are taking a turn that may make me be more careful and more economical than I ever was before, and I just thought before I found out I'd have one good time!"

As she finished, the defiant expression returned, and she cast a glance at her companion which seemed to challenge his disapproval. "I notice you don't—I notice lots of folks don't mind the extravagance."

"Ah, but Judge Trent pays my expenses, you see."

Miss Lacey drew herself up under the smiling regard. "He came very near paying mine," was her unspoken thought, and she would have been astonished to know how close her companion came to reading it.

"Of course that makes a difference," she returned, and she regarded her neighbor curiously, wishing she knew just what his business arrangement was with the judge.

"And I would have known, too, if I'd married him," she thought.

Dunham had been handling a magazine, watching for the moment when he could open it; but gaining more and more the impression that Miss Lacey felt his companionship to be a perquisite which rendered more reasonable the price of her chair, he dropped the periodical in his lap.

"Well, for my part, Miss Lacey," he said, leaning his head back definitely, "I think some well-distributed extravagance isn't so disreputable."

"Perhaps not," she returned, "but if you were a lone spinster without a bank account you might have your doubtful moments."

There was a hint of childlike excitement in the speaker's manner which Dunham found rather touching.

"Don't pretend to me that you ever have doubtful moments," he said, regarding the alert face with curiosity as to how it had appeared in those days when Judge Trent had wanted "just that one girl."

"My!" exclaimed Miss Lacey. "I'm having a doubtful moment right now; not one, but dozens! I'm on the most ticklish errand of my life. That's what I called on Judge Trent about the other day."

"That's right," commented Dunham gravely. "Never move without legal advice."

"And if I'd had any idea I was going to meet you, I'd have brought your handkerchief. I've done it up as smooth as satin."

"How good of you!"

"And it's pretty near as fine as satin, too; and that worked monogram is a beauty; but it's lucky you're a lawyer, for it would take one to figure out what the letters are;—but you needn't tell your sweetheart I said so."

Dunham laughed. "I won't. It would break her heart."

"Don't you ever wipe off chairs with it again. It's wicked," declared Miss Lacey emphatically.

"Then don't you ever come into the office and give me heart failure by your unkind comments."

"I don't know as I ever shall," returned Miss Lacey, suddenly pensive and looking into space. "The other day I was clear out of Judge Trent's office and into the street, and it was too late to go back, before I realized that I'd scarcely got three words from him that were really definite or any use to me. Has he mentioned to you anything about a niece of his who has come to Boston? I suppose he hasn't."

"Yes, he has."

"Indeed? Well, she's mine, too, and this minute I'm on my way to see her." Miss Lacey made the declaration impressively. "He ought to be here himself. But I won't shirk my duty if he does his. She's come clear from Illinois, and I don't know what for. I wish I was like some folks and could let her shift for herself; but she isn't twenty yet, and I haven't got the heart. I haven't been smart, I saw that afterward; for if I'd gone to Judge Trent and just said I was too poor to do anything for Sylvia and stuck to it, and carried matters with a high hand and told him I wasn't going near her, he'd have had to. I see that as plain as day now, but he came at me with the good news about my money, and kind of sidled me toward the door, and while I was gasping and trying to realize it, the first thing I knew I was downstairs."

Dunham received her injured look with a nod as she paused.

"I live all alone," she went on, and John wondered who then customarily received her flow of conversation; "and all this sudden business is a great disturbance to me. I've laid awake over the matter, and prayed over it, and here I am, not knowing yet what I'm going to do."

She fell silent. She could not tell this stranger that it was the ne'er-do-well character of her only brother which caused her panic at the mere hint of taking the responsibility of his daughter, many years motherless and the companion of his wholly slipshod methods of life. In years past Calvin Trent had been wont to say it was like pouring water into a sieve to endeavor to help Sam Lacey.

While Miss Martha was indulging in a résumé of the dismal situation her companion took a folded memorandum from an inside pocket and scanned it.

"Girl at Hotel Frisbie.

"Name Sylvia Lacey.

"Age nineteen.

"Her mother, my sister, dead for ten years.

"Her father, recently deceased, an alleged artist, a rolling stone and a scapegrace all his life.

"Be present at interview between Miss Martha Lacey and the girl.

"Let Miss Martha take the lead."

There were a few further instructions, but Miss Lacey here broke in upon the reading.

"I'm going to ask you to do one more gallant thing for me, Sir Walter."

"I'm ready."

"Put me on the right car for Hotel Frisbie. The Boston street-cars are a hopeless muddle to me,—always were and always will be."

"I'll escort you to the hotel."

"Oh, that's too kind!" exclaimed Miss Martha. "I'm not quite non compos. I can get out all right. It's the getting in that's the puzzle."

"But I have to go there myself. Judge Trent thought you might need a lieutenant. He has sent me to help you."

The color rushed to Miss Martha's face. Calvin was thinking of her, after all. Her eyes glistened with sudden hope.

"What is he willing to do?" she demanded.

"Nothing—that is, very little," responded Dunham hastily. "You, I suppose, are acquainted with this young lady?"

"Indeed I'm not!" Miss Martha repudiated the charge with energy. "And I'm not nearly as well able to help her as Calvin is. So he sent you. He has a conscience about it, after all. I don't suppose he'd consent to her living with him?"

"Not for one moment," returned Dunham quickly. "Whatever course you consider, that idea must be dismissed."

"Whatever course I consider," repeated Miss Lacey bitterly. "Judge Trent has no business to leave all the considering to me. It's cowardly, and it's mean, and I don't care one bit if you tell him I said so!"

"I shan't," returned Dunham. "He has sent me. He is prepared to do something, anything in reason that you think best."

After this Miss Lacey's problem descended heavily upon her, and she averted her head and looked gloomily at the flying landscape; so Dunham opened his magazine and read until they reached Boston.

[ ]

CHAPTER IV

HOTEL FRISBIE

The Frisbie being a commercial house in a crowded business centre, Miss Lacey was glad of Dunham's safe conduct amid clanging bells and interlacing traffic wagons. She followed him through the dark hall of the hotel and into an elevator. Leaving this, they entered the depressing stretches of a long parlor whose stiff furniture and hangings clung drearily against a harassing wall paper as dingy as themselves. Finding the room empty, Miss Lacey began to speak excitedly as soon as they were seated and Dunham had sent the bell-boy on his errand.

"Exactly the sort of a hotel my brother Sam would have come to!" she said. "I wondered why Sylvia chose it. Like as not he's brought her here before."

Then her lips snapped together, for she remembered she was not going to speak slightingly of her brother before a stranger.

"Too bad he was not the sort of man with whom you and Judge Trent could have been in sympathy," replied Dunham civilly. "It would have made the present situation easier."

"Then Calvin has told you about it," returned Miss Martha, with mingled relief and resentment, "and you understand why we can't feel anything except a painful duty in this matter. If Sylvia had stayed West like a reasonable being, instead of rushing on to Boston without our permission, we would have helped her what we could—at least the judge would. It would have been a great deal simpler to send a little money to Springfield, Illinois, than to have the worry of the girl right here with us—neither of us wanting her,—we couldn't be expected to." Miss Lacey's tongue was loosened now and all reserves broken down. "I'm not in a position to assume the care of anybody, and as for Judge Trent, you know how set and peculiar he is, and besides that, my brother always made his wife perfectly miserable"—

"It's a lie!"

Miss Lacey sank back in her chair and Dunham sprang to his feet as the girlish voice rang out, and a black-clothed figure stood before them. She had been standing behind one of the heavy hangings watching the passing in the seething street when the two entered the room, and until now had listened tense and motionless.

For a silent moment the visitors faced the girl, whose crop of short, curly hair vibrated, and whose eyes sent forth sparks of blue fire as she stood there, indignation incarnate. Her glance roved from one to the other, and Miss Martha pinched herself to make certain that she had not fallen into a bad dream, while Dunham crimsoned under the burning gaze.

"Syl—Sylvia, is that you!" exclaimed Miss Lacey unsteadily.

The girl scorned to reply. White and accusing she stood. Miss Martha looked up at her companion appealingly. "Mr.—Mr.—Sir Walter—Oh, I don't know your name!"

The young girl half closed her eyes and looked down on her aunt with a strange expression.

"Do you," she asked slowly, "talk like that about your dead brother even to persons whose names you haven't learned?"

"Great Scott!" thought Dunham, whose crimson was fast becoming prickly heat. "What have I got into!"

"I know this gentleman—I do, Sylvia," returned Miss Martha earnestly. "He is your Uncle Calvin's—yes, your Uncle Calvin's trusted friend."

"I should judge so," returned the girl, fixing the unhappy Dunham with her gaze. "I should judge his position to be very nearly one of the family. Does Uncle Calvin know his name?"

Dunham had for some years been aware that his height was six feet. Now he appeared to himself to be shrinking together until he was twin to his employer. It would be a fortunate moment to present his card to these ladies! For the first time in his life he found his hands in his way.

"The situation is very peculiar—very," stammered Miss Martha nervously, "and I'm very sorry, very sorry indeed that you were listening."

"Oh, so am I!" ejaculated the girl, the angry tenseness of her face changing and her voice breaking as she threw up her hands in a despairing gesture. The pathos of the black figure struck through Dunham's mortification.

"I wouldn't have hurt your feelings for anything," pursued Miss Martha earnestly.

"Wouldn't you?"

"No; and I wish you would believe it and not look at me so strangely. I never had hysterics in my life, but I feel as if I might have them right off, if you don't stop."

The young girl had regained her self-control. "It might be the best ending to the interview," she said, "for I could leave you then to—to the trusted friend. I don't know what to do now." She clasped her hands over her face for a second, then dropped them.

"She's dreadfully theatrical, dreadfully," thought Miss Lacey.

"She is broken-hearted," thought Dunham; and pulling himself together he found his voice.

"My name is Dunham, Miss Lacey," he said, meeting the blue eyes where the fire had burned out, showing the face so white, so young. "This is in the day's work for me, and I'm sorry. I am in Judge Trent's office, and he sent me here with your aunt to represent him."

"My aunt saved a lot of time," rejoined the girl slowly, speaking low. "She represented them both while I stood there behind the curtain." Her hands pressed together, and she looked again from one to the other.

"There isn't anything for you to stay for now, is there?" she added, after a painful silence.

"Why, of course there is!" exclaimed Miss Martha. "We haven't made any plan at all."

"What plan had you thought of making?"

Miss Martha cleared her throat and looked up at Dunham.

"I—we—wanted to ask what your plans were."

"They're nothing to you, I'm sure," returned the girl.

"Why, they're a great deal to us. You mustn't think Judge Trent and I don't feel any responsibility of you. We do."

The girl's lips quivered into something that tried to be a smile.

"How did you intend to show it before—before you came in here this morning?"

"Why, we"—Miss Martha cleared her throat again, "we—feel sure, of course, that—unless your father left you money you—you will want to find something to do, and we intend to help you find it."

Sylvia looked like a pale flower as she stood there. There rose in Dunham the involuntary desire to protect that any man who saw her would have felt.

"And to pay your expenses until you do find it," he added hastily. "That is Judge Trent's idea," he declared, in a recklessly encouraging tone. "To pay your expenses so long as you need it."

The girl's quivering smile grew steadier. Her pride stiffened under this man's regard.

"Where?" she asked, with self-possession. "Not at the Touraine, probably."

It was like a downward jerk on a balloon. Dunham suddenly remembered the memoranda and his employer's shaggy gaze.

"At the Young Women's Christian Association," he replied apologetically.

The girl laughed. "I don't like the sound of it," she said. "Is it some sort of reformatory?"

"It is not," replied Miss Martha warmly. "That is a very good idea of your uncle's. I hadn't heard of it. It is a very generous and proper arrangement," with growing conviction. "Boston is dreadfully overcrowded, and you'd have probably done better in Springfield, whatever it's like; but I'll stay with you now,"—Miss Martha began taking off her gloves nervously,—"and help you pack up and take you over to the Association, and see you settled. The superintendent can no doubt help you to find something to do, and perhaps everything will be all right, after all."

Sylvia Lacey stretched out her hand. "Put those gloves on again, Aunt Martha. Your duty to me is done. You and Mr. Dunham can go home now."

Miss Martha's eyes snapped behind her glasses. "What do you mean? What are you going to do, then?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Any one of half a dozen things. Get married, probably."

Miss Martha stared. "Are you engaged all this time and we worrying ourselves like this?"

"No, but a man, an actor, wants me to marry him. He believes I would do well on the stage."

"Sylvia Lacey, you mustn't marry an actor. You mustn't consider such a thing!" The speaker sprang to her feet and took a step forward.

"I haven't until now,"—Sylvia's white cheeks gave the lie to her nonchalant tone,—"but father said he believed Nat would be good to me. I thought it very strange at the time, but he seemed much more certain that Nat would be kind than that you and Uncle Calvin would."

"Sylvia, you mustn't be willful. You're a young girl. You must let your uncle and me think for you. I am going to remain with you until I see you moved. You can't stay in this hotel alone, not a day." Miss Martha glanced about as if she expected to see some of her brother's disreputable friends leap up from behind the stuffy old armchairs.

"Go at once, please," returned the girl. "Won't you take her?" suddenly turning to Dunham appealingly. "I'm very tired."

He did not need to be convinced of it. The white face showed the nervous strain. He believed the short curls meant some recent illness. He wished himself a thousand miles away, and took a final grip on the hat he was holding.

"We're unwilling to leave you in such uncertainty," he said lamely.

Sylvia's eyes rested on his.

"Tell Uncle Calvin"—she paused, for her throat filled—"no," she added with difficulty, "just go, please."

"Sylvia, I beg of you," Miss Lacey came forward, face and voice perturbed, and attempted to take her niece's hand.

Sylvia fell back a step. "You said everything a few minutes ago, Aunt Martha. Nothing could make any difference now. Good-by. Go, or else I must."

"Why, it's impossible, it's unheard of!" Tears sprang to Miss Martha's eyes, but Dunham took her arm and led her to the door, and while a sob of anxiety struggled in her breast he hurried her to the elevator and out upon the street, and at once hailed an approaching car.

"Do you wish to go right to the station, or to do errands?" he asked.

"Oh, errands!" exclaimed Miss Lacey wildly. "Who could think of errands!"

"Well, this car will take you to the station. I have some business to attend to, but shall probably catch the same train you do."

The car stopped. Dunham helped his bewildered companion to enter, and stepping back to the sidewalk, walked half a block in the opposite direction with business-like haste. Then he turned on his heel, observed that no stoppage in the street had detained Miss Martha's noisy conveyance, and striding back to the hotel, he reëntered the dingy elevator.

He knew that there could scarcely be a more deserted, isolated spot at this hour of the day than the parlor of the old hotel; and it was as he hoped. The girl had not left it. He descried the slender black figure at once. She was clinging hopelessly with both hands to one of the sodden hangings and sobbing into its heavy folds.

He went up to her. "Pardon me. I've come back. Please don't do that."

She lifted her swollen eyes in surprise for a moment and then hid them.

"What right have you!" she murmured.

"None, but I couldn't do anything else, of course. You can see that. Come over here and sit down, please. Somebody might come in."

The girl controlled her sobs; but kept her face hidden. "I don't want to talk to you," she gasped.

"I know you don't. It makes it rather awkward. Is there any one else in Boston—any one I could go and bring to you?"

She rubbed her soft little curls into the aged hangings in a hopeless negative.

"Say!" said Dunham, in acute protest, "would you mind taking your head out of that curtain? Why, it might give you typhoid fever."

"I've just had it," replied the girl chokingly. "That's why I'm so weak and—and—Oh, if I could just telegraph to Nat!"

"If you'll come out of the curtain I'll wire Nat," responded Dunham eagerly,—"that is, if it's the best thing," he added doubtfully.

"You can't wire him. He's one-nighting. I don't know where to catch him, and he couldn't come anyway."

John continued to regard her as she left her hold on the curtain and pressed a wet handkerchief to her eyes. "Come over here and sit down one minute, please. I won't stay long."

She followed reluctantly to the chair he placed. "You shouldn't stay at all," she returned. "I don't wish to trouble a perfect stranger with my woes, and except for Uncle Calvin you have no reason to be here, and—and I haven't any uncle any more."

It was pitiful to see her effort to control the pretty, grieving lips. Her soul was smarting with the shock of her discovery, and the mortification of this stranger's knowledge of it. She wished to send him out of her sight at once; but her voice failed.

"Now, I'm neither Aunt Martha nor Uncle Calvin," said John, "and I refuse to be treated as if I were. If you haven't any friends in Boston I'm sure you can make one of me for five minutes. The situation is awkward enough, and you might feel for me a bit, eh?"

"No, not if you have come to try to persuade me to do anything. Nat—Mr. Forsyth, says he is sure I could get a chance on the stage, and—and he says it would make everything easier if I married him; but my friends at home urged me so much, and said the stage was a dog's life, and persuaded me that my own people were the ones to help me now. My own people!" the speaker pressed the handkerchief to her unsteady lips again, and her eyes swam afresh.

Dunham regarded her. Of course she could get a position on the stage. Any creature so pretty always could. He pictured her in some chorus, these quivering lips reddened and the swimming eyes laughing in the shade of an outrageous hat.

"I should say the stage last myself," he returned. "Your own people are the ones. Your Uncle Calvin"—

"I haven't any."

"Well, Judge Trent, then, is what is popularly described as a dried-up old bachelor. It never occurred to him that happiness might be—that he might find a daughter in you; but he wants to do his duty by you—indeed he does," for the girl's face was discouraging, "and, by George, you ought to let him do it."

"Never! And I always bade his picture good-night. Mother loved him so, and she taught me." The last word was inaudible.

Dunham leaned forward with his hands on his knees. "Now would you mind telling me, since you haven't any one else to tell, how much money you have?"

A little determined shake of the curls. "I shouldn't think of telling you."

"Then you're a very foolish girl. You ought to have more head and not so much heart in this affair. Judge Trent is a man whom any one might be proud to claim, and if you won't behave childishly we can bring him around all right."

"Do you think I'd stoop to bring him around?" she asked, with a moist flash of the eyes.

"You wouldn't be the first who stooped to conquer. If you were clever you would."

"Father thought I was clever, and so does Nat," she said, with feeble resentment.

"They wouldn't if they knew what you are doing now. Just because a busy old bachelor of a lawyer, immersed in hard-headed affairs, doesn't throw all aside and come here to welcome you and behave like a family man, you repudiate him altogether."

"She said they didn't either of them want me." The voice was a wail.

"But you weren't anything to them but a name."

"I'm their own flesh and blood."

"Yes, and see that you don't forget it. You have a claim upon them. Now at best it must be some days before you can communicate with your—friend, perhaps I ought to say your lover."

"Oh, no, don't," with faint dissent. "He's father's friend, really, and he's—poor thing, he's so fat I don't think he'd call himself anybody's lover; but he's so kind. He was so good to father."

This time the speaker did not vanish into the handkerchief, but caught her lip between her little teeth, and looking away, struggled for composure in a way that drew on John's heartstrings.

This slender creature, not yet strong from the illness that had crowned her head with those silky tendrils, and with no supporting arm save that of a barn-storming actor, mediocre in his middle age, what was Judge Trent's representative to do or say to prevent her from taking some foolish and desperate course!

"Now you simply must have money to tide you over," he announced. "Let's not have any nonsense. You can't knock about this hotel. Judge Trent knew what he was doing when he said the Young Women's Christian Association. He wanted you guarded, and he wasn't—he didn't—he couldn't very well guard you himself." Dunham stammered, but collected himself with praiseworthy dignity. He had recalled his six feet of height, and rising, began to make the most of the last inch, and to try the effect of a frown down on the flower face whose eyes, looking a little startled, encouraged him. He frowned more heavily as he took a bill book from his pocket and counted out five five-dollar bills.

"Now take that money and put it away in some safe place," he said briefly. "I'll take you over to the Association myself. No, indeed, I'm not Aunt Martha, and you're going with me."

The girl let the bills drop into her lap while she drew her hands away from them.

"I'd rather go and jump into the water!" she began passionately.

"Don't—be—silly!" returned Dunham, in a biting, big-brother tone which seemed to have an effect.

"Is this Uncle Calvin's money?"

"Of course it is. What would your mother say if she were here? Of course I understand you're not going to be dependent upon Judge Trent. You've made up your mind to that, and I'm not going to try to shake you; but I suppose you're not so childish as to refuse a small gift from your mother's brother, just because you're disappointed in him, or angry with him—or whatever you choose to call it. I'm rather pressed for time," continued John, after a short pause, assuming the tone he reserved for a book agent on his busy day, and taking out his watch he gave it a sweeping glance. "It would oblige me very much if you could hurry a little. You can't stay here, you know, and I'll have a carriage ready."

Sylvia rose undecidedly. "You take a great deal for granted," she said. "I—there's only one condition on which I'll go, and that is that you don't tell either my uncle or my aunt where I am. I will not see them. I'll have no more of their sense of duty! I won't have Aunt Martha come back there."

"Oh, very well," Dunham gave a hasty and rather bored nod.

"But do you promise?" The blue eyes began to dry and to sparkle again.

"Well, yes, of course. I promise."

She left the room; and the various shades of dignity, sarcasm, and boredom gradually vanished from the young man's countenance. He smiled and shrugged his big shoulders with the gesture of a ten-year-old schoolboy, and moving over to a hoary mirror with a freckled gilt frame, he executed a brief and silent clog before it.

"I'm not so bad," he commented to his reflection. "Nat isn't the only star in the profession."

[ ]

CHAPTER V

JUDGE TRENT'S STUDY

Dunham took care not to see Miss Lacey again until their train was nearing its destination. Then as he approached the seat where she gazed out the car window he observed that her eyes bore traces of tears.

She gave a nervous start as she recognized him.

"Oh, there you are. I've been afraid you missed the train. I'm very glad you've come, for I'm going straight to Judge Trent's office with you, Mr. Dunham."

"Oh, are you?" responded the young man dubiously. He seemed to see his employer's warning glance. "I rather think Judge Trent will have gone home. It's pretty late."

"Very well," returned Miss Lacey decisively, "then we go on to his house. This is no time to stand on ceremony. Every moment counts."

Whatever was in her mind her companion saw that she had worked herself to a pitch of excitement which made a railroad train no fitting environment for its expression; and to avoid further conversation he moved to the door and stood looking through the glass, meditating upon the approaching interview.

The station reached, Miss Lacey waited while Dunham telephoned to the office. There was no reply.

"The judge has evidently gone home," he said, returning to anxious Miss Martha.

"Then, as I told you," she answered, with firmness, "I am going to his house."

She had turned this possibility over in her mind several times. The long spring day was bright. Neighbors would observe her and comment upon her action, and she was not indifferent to this.

It did not occur to Dunham that she might consider the present situation an ordeal, but he was certain of Judge Trent's frame of mind, and he felt it incumbent upon him to do what he could.

"Shan't I put you on the car for home, Miss Lacey?" he asked persuasively, "and bring Judge Trent to see you?"

"It would be very nice if you could," she returned briefly, "but you couldn't."

"Oh, I assure you,"—began John smoothly.

Miss Lacey emitted a sort of impatient groan. "Don't talk," she exclaimed brusquely. "You don't know anything about it. He'll go on shirking just the way he's begun if I give him the chance. Isn't that the car coming? Oh, no, it isn't!"

"Probably you'd rather see him alone," suggested John, seizing upon a sudden hope. "Being so essentially a family matter and—eh—don't you think?"

"No, I don't think!" returned Miss Lacey. "If I'd had my way it would have been a family matter. Calvin and I ought to have attended to it entirely alone; but he would drag you into it—yes, I know it's very uncomfortable for you, but you are in, and I need you for a witness and to back me up, and you must come, Mr. Dunham; there's the car now."

John yielded to the inevitable. He remembered grimly one item of his memoranda. "Follow Miss Lacey's lead."

Whatever of humor was in the situation was in abeyance. He had an irritating consciousness that what should have been the problem of these people had been shifted upon himself in a manner most unfair of Fortune. The desolate face that he had left haunted his thoughts; and the girl's pride and obstinacy in binding him to secrecy made the coming interview awkward.

Judge Trent, all unsuspicious, was sitting in his study. He had slipped on the dressing-gown with the indistinguishable pattern, and the rusty slippers that his soul loved. His silk hat formed a shadow for his eyes, and his big table was covered with a riot of books and papers.

At the moment chosen by his visitors for their entrance, the down-trodden heels were also resting on the table as the judge leaned back luxuriously in his desk chair and read the Boston papers.

Miss Lacey declined to allow Hannah to announce their visit.

"He might get out some back way," she declared to Dunham in a nervous undertone. She had outraged the proprieties by coming, as she read in the disapproving puckers around the old housekeeper's mouth. She was not going now to have the name without the game.

The library door opened.

Judge Trent looked up vaguely, then frowningly, then brought down his feet with a start.

"Good-evening," said Dunham; "we have come back."

Unexpected as was the sight of Miss Lacey in his sanctum, Judge Trent's astonishment was merged in the apprehension of what might be beyond. He looked over her shoulder with startled eyes as he arose.

Miss Martha understood. "No, indeed," she exclaimed, "she isn't here."

The host breathed a sigh of relief, and his sharp eyes began to question Dunham while he collected himself sufficiently to bring forward a chair for the lady.

"You honor me, Mar—Miss Lacey," he said.

"Thank you—Judge Trent," she returned, and giving his figure a comprehensive glance from top to toe, she touched her bonnet significantly as she sat down.

He did not observe the gesture. "Well," he said, resuming his seat and waving Dunham to another, "so you have come to tell me of your success. Very kind of you."

The speaker's endeavor to be courteous was offset by an impatient drumming of his fingers on the desk and the drawing together of his brows.

Martha ignored the signs. Let him drum. Let him scowl. "No," she returned impressively, "we have come to tell you of our failure."

Her manner was trying. It irritated her host still further. "How so?" he demanded.

She measured him with a severe gaze. "Calvin, you are wearing your hat," she announced frigidly.

"Eh? Oh! Pardon me." With hasty discomfiture the lawyer deposited his boon companion on the table.

"Oh! not in all that dust!" implored Miss Lacey.

He blew the vicinity vaguely. "Hannah doesn't do her duty by you!" she continued.

"Thank heaven, no," responded the judge devoutly.

Dunham was choking as quietly as possible by the mantelpiece, where he had remained standing despite his host's invitation.

"Say on, Mar—Miss Lacey," said the lawyer. "Do you mean you didn't find the girl? Make it short, please. Come to the point."

Miss Lacey's spirit arose. A human soul was involved, and no man, be he lawyer or lover, should browbeat or persuade her.

"Judge Trent," she began emphatically, fixing him with eyes which he but now perceived were swollen, "don't think to hurry me. I've come here on serious business. Men call you an eminent lawyer, a brilliant man. Now we'll see if you are sufficiently able to save your only sister's only child from an awful future."

Miss Lacey paused with working lips. Judge Trent perceived that she was deeply moved, and not endeavoring to make the most of an enjoyable situation. He pushed up his spectacles and looked questioningly at Dunham.

"You wouldn't come," pursued Miss Martha accusingly; "you wouldn't help me."

"I sent Dunham with full power."

"What could he do?" retorted Miss Lacey, in grief. "A mere boy like him, and no relation. Of course, after I had made a complete mess of it, what was left for him to do when she turned us out, but to come back with me?"

"You told me to follow Miss Lacey's lead," stated Dunham.

"Your place was there, Calvin. You might have saved the day even after my blunder."

"Perhaps you will tell me what blunder."

"Why, she was in the parlor curtains, Sylvia was, when we went in," Martha's voice trembled, "and I don't suppose, to be fair, that she thought of eavesdropping."

"No," put in Dunham feelingly, "I've no doubt she was watching for you; and I can imagine how eager and—and different her face looked then." His reminiscent tone was earnest, and his employer regarded him with sudden sharpness.

"So she's pretty," he said dryly.

"Oh, indeed she is—or would be if she was painted up the way they do," groaned Miss Martha. "She's too pale—but that might have been all anger."

"No," said Dunham quickly, "she's had typhoid fever."

Miss Lacey stared at him. "How do you know that?" she demanded.

"Why—why—of course," stammered John, "her short curly hair meant that. Didn't you think of it at once?"

"That's an absurd conclusion," returned Miss Martha, while Judge Trent quietly regarded the young man's flushing countenance.

"But if it should be true, Calvin," continued the lady miserably, "she's not fit yet to go to work at anything! I haven't told you yet. I talked right out to Mr. Dunham in that parlor about our not wanting her, you and I; and how we wished she'd stayed West. Oh, I've gone over it dozens of times since, and it keeps growing worse. Every word I said was true, and it was perfectly compatible with our intention to help her all the time; but she couldn't realize that, and I was just sort of explaining to Mr. Dunham your coolness in the matter by telling him how miserable Sam made Laura when the girl jumped out of those curtains like a—like a perfect fury, didn't she, Mr. Dunham?"

He nodded. "She seemed at a white heat with righteous indignation," he agreed.

Miss Martha took up the tale.

"Then she began to score us all, Calvin, and perhaps you could have fixed it, but she simply froze me and my apologies; and then that child positively told us to go. I tried to stand my ground, and Mr. Dunham came out with your good sensible offer to send her to the Young Women's Christian Association, and I tried my best to persuade her to let me take her over there; but she laughed us to scorn, or smiled scorn, anyway; but I would not leave her until she told me what she was going to do—and what do you think it is, that your niece, Judge Trent's niece, proposes to do? She proposes to go on the stage," finished Miss Martha, in a hollow voice,—"to go on the stage and marry an actor; an actor named Nat!"

"Fat and middle-aged and mediocre," added Dunham.

Miss Lacey turned on him quickly. "Sylvia didn't say a word about his being fat and middle-aged!" she declared severely. "Are you presuming to make fun of this situation, Mr. Dunham?"

Judge Trent's keen gaze again noted the crimsoning ears of his assistant.

"Why—why, of course I wouldn't do that, Miss Lacey," blurted out the young man. "Didn't you notice what she said about his being her father's friend? What else could he be but middle-aged, and probably fat?"

"Well, we don't need to call on our imagination for anything," said Miss Martha coldly. "The facts are sufficient." She turned back to Judge Trent.

"So there's that young creature, Calvin, our own flesh and blood, alone in that rattle-te-banging city, without money for all we know, going to pin her faith to an actor man, and each of us with our homes, closed against her, as she feels, and you know we did feel so, too, Calvin; and when I put myself in her place and remember the things she heard me say, I don't blame her for refusing our advice and help. She's young and high-strung, and oh, I've made such a mess of it, and,—and,—say something, Calvin Trent!" Miss Lacey made the addition so explosively that the judge jumped. "Say you'll send some of your detectives to keep watch of her—quick—to-morrow—before she has a chance to get away from that hotel and get lost to us!"

Martha suddenly raised her clasped hands to her face, and burying her eyes in her handkerchief, wept miserably.

Judge Trent cleared his throat, and Dunham stirred and felt his knowledge weigh upon him guiltily.

"Don't get nervous, Martha," returned the lawyer. "Did you think I kept a brace of detectives in the back yard? I'm sorry about this. I'm"—

Miss Lacey emerged from the handkerchief as suddenly as she had entered it. "Oh, the mistake I made—the minute I saw you wouldn't do your part in this—the mistake I made not to ask Thinkright. I never thought of him; but it came to me on the cars that he would have been the right one. I suppose you'd have consented easily enough that Sylvia should go to the farm; and now—Oh, Mr. Dunham, I can't forgive you for putting that typhoid fever idea into my head, but if she did have"—

"A farm?" interrupted Dunham quickly, with an interest not lost upon his employer. "A farm would have been just the thing. Where is it, Judge Trent?"

"It's a little place I have in Maine. A cousin of mine runs it for me. So you think, Martha, that I'm below criticism in this whole matter, do you? That's a rather bright thought of yours about Thinkright."

"But it comes too late," returned Martha excitedly. "How do you know that Sylvia won't take the night train for the West right off to join that horrible Nat?"

"Then you think she has money?"

"I don't know. I only know she spurned the idea of any help from us."

"Wouldn't take a cent, eh?" rejoined Judge Trent. He turned toward Dunham. "I'll take that twenty-five then, Boy. It's pay-day for Hannah."

Dunham started from his leaning posture by the mantelpiece, and the lawyer watched his embarrassed countenance as he began a search through his pockets. He succeeded in extracting bills from two.

"I've only eight dollars here, Judge," he said at last, avoiding the other man's eyes.

"H'm. You and Miss Lacey must have painted the town," remarked Judge Trent, accepting the money. "Had a good appetite for dinner in spite of your troubles, hadn't you, Martha?"

"We didn't have luncheon together," returned Miss Martha, indignant at her friend's flippancy. "Do you suppose I cared whether I ever ate again or not?"

"The boy deserted you, did he? Didn't I tell you to take care of Miss Lacey?"

Dunham caught Judge Trent's eye for a second, and looked away. "I think I took care of her," he replied coldly.

"Of course you did," said Miss Martha impatiently. "He had business to attend to. Now perhaps you'll choose some other time for joking, Calvin Trent, and tell me what you propose to do while valuable minutes are flying."

The judge drummed thoughtfully now on his desk. "That was a bright idea of yours concerning Thinkright," he remarked musingly.

"Then make it worth something!" responded Miss Lacey. His deliberate manner was driving her to frenzy. "Send a telegram if you can't send a detective. Say, 'News to your advantage coming,' or something like that. Anything to keep her there while we send for Thinkright."

"Send for him, eh?" mused the judge aloud.

"Why, of course!" responded Martha, in the very throes of impatience. "She wouldn't come with me, would she? She certainly wouldn't come with you!" The speaker brought out the last pronoun with a vicious satisfaction.

"Too bad of you to blacken me to her like that," remarked the judge. "I sent, as I supposed, an entirely capable representative. John admitted that he could carry off the affair with flying colors. How about that hand you had tied behind you, Boy?"

Dunham changed his position. "It was a very strange and hard situation, Judge Trent," he replied stiffly. "Most unexpected and uncomfortable all around."

"Then I may assume that you untied the hand?"

The young man did not reply. His indignation at his employer's imperturbability was becoming as pronounced as Miss Lacey's.

"I ought to have gone," continued Judge Trent. "Really I didn't suppose that a fellow recommended as an expert by such high authority as himself could be so invertebrate. You actually came away just because the girl told you to. Why, a novice could have done that."

Dunham regarded the little man with a stern displeasure which entertained the judge highly. Then John turned toward Miss Lacey: "Just where is this farm you speak of?"

"It's in Casco Bay. You take the train from Portland and then drive."

"And this man with the strange name?" pursued Dunham.

"Oh, it isn't his name, but nobody thinks of calling him anything else. He's Judge Trent's cousin, Jacob Johnson, and he lives on this farm winter and summer. He's a good soul, and he was cousin to Sylvia's mother, too, of course, and he"—

"Casco Bay. I have friends who go there in the summer." Dunham's manner grew purposeful.

Judge Trent rubbed his chin the wrong way. "I could send a detective, Martha," he said thoughtfully. "I don't keep them in the back yard, but I usually have one around the office. I could shadow the girl."

Miss Lacey took hope. This met her longings. "If we only surely knew where she is!" she responded acutely.

"Yes, if we only did," the judge replied equably. "Where is she, Dunham?"

The young man flushed at the question.

"I can't tell you," he answered, after a moment's pause.

"Of course he can't," exclaimed Martha. "How queer you act, Calvin. Do you intend to do anything, after all?" Tears sprang to her eyes and overflowed, but she paid no attention to them as she gazed distractedly at the exasperating lawyer.

Judge Trent's manner changed. He even smiled into the tearful countenance, and as she had suddenly risen he rose too.

"Yes, Martha," he answered, "I expect to see something done about it right away. The fat actor shan't get Laura's little girl this time."

Miss Lacey regarded the shrewd face in the intervals of wiping her eyes. "You'll telegraph to Sylvia, and send another message to Thinkright to come right here. Of course we can't be sure that Sylvia will get it, though—and there's all Thinkright's traveling expenses." The speaker's wet eyes looked appealing.

"Dunham's going to tell us where Sylvia is," returned the judge quietly. He paused, and Martha looked bewildered by this persistence. She turned toward John questioningly.

"I can't," replied Dunham again.

Judge Trent shrugged his shabby shoulders. "Oh, well, I suppose you can telegraph for us, then."

John swallowed, and meeting the lawyer's eyes, realized that he might as well save circumlocution.

"Well—yes."

"Of all things!" exclaimed Martha, with a start. "What do you mean?"

The judge hooked his thumbs in his armholes, regarding Dunham quizzically. "How about Jacob Johnson, Esquire, alias Thinkright. Do you suppose if I sent to him to shake the hayseed out of his hair and come on here you might unburden yourself to him somewhat?"

"Look here, Judge Trent," said Dunham, with exasperation, "perhaps you think I've had a pleasant day."

The lawyer approached the speaker and patted his big arm. "Could you, John, could you, do you think?"

"Yes, confound you!"

"Then we're fixed, Martha," said Judge Trent calmly. "You're all right, Dunham. You didn't overrate yourself at all."

"But I don't understand," exclaimed Martha tremulously, looking from one to the other.

Judge Trent opened the door for her ceremoniously.

"The intricate workings of the law, Martha, are difficult of explanation; but, after all, what do you care if the net result proves to be the arrival of your niece at the Mill Farm in a few days."

"Of your niece, Calvin," returned Miss Lacey, moving to the door, followed by Dunham, whose brow was lowering. "Don't think of coming with me, Mr. Dunham," she added, turning to him. "It is still fully light—and," ingratiatingly, "did you say you were going to telegraph Sylvia?"

"Yes."

"What shall he say, Calvin?"

"I should trust his judgment before my own," returned the lawyer. "Here's your eight dollars, Boy, and you're a trump."

John took the money without smiling; but he was glad to know about the farm.

Miss Martha boarded her car with a heart that was questioning but beginning to hope, and her mind was busy piecing together the evidence.

Mr. Dunham had left her for hours. He had been unable to return Judge Trent's money. He knew where Sylvia was.

Her misery gradually abated, and before she reached her gate she began to wonder if her bonnet had been on straight during the recent interview.

[ ]

CHAPTER VI

SYLVIA'S CALLER

When Dunham's telegram reached Sylvia Lacey she was for the time being powerless to disobey it. The excitement and disappointment of the interview with her aunt had resulted in a feverish attack which, though slight, destroyed her ambition to do more than lie on her narrow bed and meditate upon the situation.

She could not write to the friends at home who had pictured such a pleasant future for her with her Boston relatives. She was not able even to go out and buy a "Dramatic Mirror" to discover where Nat's company would be playing the coming week.

She lay white and slender in her black wrapper, and listlessly fingered the telegram, which was now two days old. It read:—

"Do not leave Association till you hear from me. Important. John Dunham."

In the hopelessness of her thought her mental pictures of Dunham were always mortifying. He had heard her belittled, had heard her father slandered, had forced her to accept grudging charity, and yet the sunshine of the smile with which he had bade her good-by, his encouraging words and friendly handclasp, formed the only spot of cheer in her wilderness. The telegram was a straw to which she clung when, in the processes of dismal thought, waves seemed to go over her head.

What important matter could be coming to her? If it were only that he intended returning, with apologies or propositions from her discarded relations, she told herself with set lips that his errand would be fruitless; but even while she took comfort in reiterating this resolution, she was finding a ray of brightness in the idea that he would be the messenger.

Her aunt's words often recurred to her. "Of course we knew you would wish to get something to do."

In the precarious hand-to-mouth existence she had led with her father since she was old enough to understand his visionary, happy-go-lucky temperament, he had regarded her and taught her to regard herself as a flower of the field. He had petted her, praised her beauty, and had managed to pay their board spasmodically in first one, then another locality; and being a good fellow who usually won the hearts of his creditors, it was not until after his death that a multitude of small claims came buzzing about his daughter's ears; and it was these as much as anything which had made her accept with childlike insouciance the arrangement of the friends who packed her away to her relatives with all the celerity possible.

Her father's men friends had always admired and flattered her; she supposed that men were all alike, and that she had but to throw her lovely arms around Uncle Calvin's neck and tell him of her father's misfortunes and petty debts to have all troubles smoothed away. She had doubted a little how she should like Uncle Calvin and Aunt Martha (the latter's stiff epistles had not prepossessed her), but she had never entertained one question as to how they would like her.

To hear it declared first and foremostly that they took no interest in her, and did not want her, and secondly, that they proposed sending her out into the world to work for her living—these nightmarish facts made her rebound at once to the memory of the carefree, shabby environment where rosy possibilities had always been held before her. As her eyes rested now on the bare wall of her bedroom, it softened and melted until she saw a vision of footlights, herself in the centre of the stage, while a murmur of applause, heart-warming, inspiring, intoxicated her senses.

The day-dream soothed her to slumber, but the applause continued. Instead of rejoicing, at last it began to disturb her. Her eyes slowly opened, and she grew conscious that some one was knocking on her door.

At her summons a maid entered. "Somebody to see you, Miss. You don't feel well enough, do you?"

The girl's tone was sympathetic. Sylvia was of a different type from those who usually sought the Association. Her appearance suggested romance.

"Who is it?" she asked eagerly, half rising. "A man?"

"Yes'm."

"A tall man, very straight?"

"He ain't so awful straight," returned the maid doubtfully.

"Thick hair?" (quickly).

"Yes'm."

"Handsome teeth?"

"I—I didn't see his teeth."

"Splendid chin?"

"Law, ma'am, his beard covers his chin."

"Beard!" Sylvia sprang to her feet. "You're crazy."

"No, I ain't, ma'am. Oh, 'tain't the gentleman you came here with, and the superintendent said was one o' the best connected folks in Boston. 'Tain't him. I saw him. He's grand. I guess this one is sort of a country gentleman, but he's awful pleasant-spoken and his beard's as white as the driving snow."

Sylvia flung herself back on the bed. "You've made a mistake. He asked for somebody else."

"No, ma'am," returned the maid; "because I thought first he said 'silver lace,' and I thought maybe he was a peddler, 'cause he had a bag; so I told him we didn't want anything, and he was real nice. His eyes sort of twinkled up, and he said he did want something. He wanted to see Miss—Sylvia—Lacey, real slow; and was you here? and I said you was, and he told me to tell you a cousin of your mother's wanted to see you, and his name was Jacob Johnson."

"I never heard of such a person," said Sylvia. "Does he look shabby—poor? It sounds like an impostor."

"N-no," returned the girl doubtfully. "He ain't exactly a Rube, but then you'd know he wasn't a swell, either. He looks awful nice out of his eyes. I'd like to have him my mother's cousin."

This was somewhat encouraging, but country cousins were no part of Sylvia's plan. "You go down and tell him I've been ill. I'm not able to see him," she said at last decidedly.

"I don't like to one bit," returned the maid. "I kind of hate to disappoint him." She lingered a moment, but Sylvia shrugged her shoulders and turned her face to the wall, so the girl departed.

Only a couple of minutes had passed when the knock sounded again on Sylvia's door, and the maid pushed it open without awaiting permission.

"He asked was you able to be dressed," she began, rather breathless from her quick run, "and I said you was, and he said for me to tell you he'd come about the telegram you got."

Sylvia was still holding the telegram. She started. So Mr. Dunham was not coming. He had not admired her, then. He did despise her as a cast-off poor relation. A flush rose to her cheeks, and she sprang from the bed quickly. "I'll go down," she said briefly.

"Well, I'm real glad," declared the maid. "That wrapper looks all right. I wouldn't stop to change."

She gazed admiringly at the brilliant tints of Sylvia's complexion as the girl ran a comb through her reddish curls.

"Indeed I shan't change for him," responded Sylvia. Her heart was hot within her. Dunham might have come himself. Now she should never see him again, and she didn't care. The only reason she had wished to meet him was to show him her inflexibility and independence despite her acceptance of the despised money he had forced upon her.

She swept by the maid, who continued to gaze after her with admiration, and went downstairs to the reception room.

There she found a man with gray hair and short white beard, sitting near a window, a somewhat limp bag on the floor beside him. She paused inside the doorway and stood regarding him.

There was nothing interesting in his appearance. She had had all she wanted of relatives. If those who would have been creditable would none of her, she certainly would none of this countrified individual and his claim of cousinship.

"Good-afternoon," she began coldly. "You say you have brought me some explanation of Mr. Dunham's telegram?"

"Why, why," said the stranger, gazing at her musingly as he slowly rose from his chair; "is it possible that you are Laura's little girl?"

He stood noting her repellent attitude, and Sylvia recalled the maid's ardent recommendation of the manner in which he looked out of his eyes.

"You resemble her very little," he continued, in a slow, quiet voice as pleasant as his gaze. "I hadn't remembered that Sam Lacey was so good-looking."

This familiar mention of her mother and father seemed to establish the stranger's claim, but Sylvia was reluctant to grant it. Her hand was still against every man, and her look did not soften.

As she kept silence the visitor continued. "You've heard your mother speak of her cousin Jacob Johnson, perhaps?" he asked wistfully.

"Never," returned the girl briefly.

The man nodded. The lines in his forehead accented his expression of patience. His loving eyes studied the young features before him.

"Yes," he sighed, "you were still only a little girl when she went away, and her life was full of other things." A pause. "I wanted to marry your mother, Sylvia." Something in his tone knocked at the door of the girl's heart. She closed it tighter and kept silence.

"Wanted to so much that I never married anybody," he went on with the same slow quiet. "She preferred Sam Lacey." The speaker's lips parted in a slight smile as tender as his eyes, which began to shine again. "As I say, I'd forgotten how good-looking Sam was."

The knocking at Sylvia's heart grew clamorous. This man's voice touched some chord; and he admired her. She demanded that.

"I've tried to think right about it ever since I knew how," he continued with simplicity, "but there were long years when I didn't know how, and when the whole world seemed unprofitable. It's a real gift to see you, my little Sylvia."

The loving sincerity of the closing words shook that sensitive string in the girl's sore heart painfully. Her eyes filled while she endeavored to retain her self-control.

"It is an unprofitable world, full of coldness, full of disappointments," she answered brusquely.

He nodded. "True, true," he said, and advancing he took her cold hand gently and led her to the chair near his own.

They sat down together.

"That sense of things is the flat, stale, unprofitable stuff we hear about," he added. "You've been sick, too, they tell me."

"Who could tell you that?"

"The young man in Judge Trent's office. Dunham's his name."

Sylvia's face crimsoned, and she pulled her hand from its kindly prison.

"Then he has broken his word," she said passionately.

"Steady, my girl. Perhaps you haven't the facts, and you can't think right till you have, you know."

"He promised he wouldn't talk to Uncle Calvin about me."

"Perhaps he hasn't. You didn't think I was Judge Trent in disguise, did you?"

"Did he only talk to you? Truly, did he?"

"So far as I know. Your uncle telegraphed for me to come to the office, and I reached there this morning. I suppose Mr. Dunham hadn't promised not to talk about you to anybody on earth, had he? Your Cousin Jacob is harmless."

Sylvia looked into the small eyes so luminous with kindness.

"But it was Uncle—Judge Trent who sent for you?"

"Yes, I think he'd somehow got the idea that you didn't care about seeing him."

"They've been cruel to me. Aunt Martha was—Oh, I mustn't, I can't speak of it!" The girl's lips pressed together after the vehement burst.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," said Cousin Jacob. The quotation from his lips became a remark. His companion looked at him in surprise. "I've an idea you're some ways off the inheritance, Sylvia."

"There's a difference between meekness and servility, I hope," she returned hotly.

"I hope so," agreed Jacob Johnson equably. "This matter's just like everything else, little girl. You haven't any call to do anything about it but just think right."

"Oh," murmured Sylvia impatiently.

"Yes, I know. It takes time, especially if you aren't in practice. That Mr. Dunham's an honest, manly chap?" He put it as a question.

"Yes, indeed."

"There, then." The visitor nodded. "So far, so good. He told me where you were."

"And not Uncle Calvin?"

"No, he'd promised not to. A girl who thought she was high-strung, excited, and mad, made him promise not to."

"Is that the way he described me?"

Cousin Jacob pointed an emphasizing finger. "She's thinking it again. No, he didn't describe you in just those words. Well, Judge Trent and Miss Lacey took this business a good deal to heart, after all; and they sent for me to tell me about things; and as long as Mr. Dunham told me where you were, I thought I'd take a run to Boston. I'd go many a mile further to see Laura's child."

"I wish she had told me about you instead of wasting time making me kiss Uncle Calvin's picture good-night." The scornful tone brought another smile to her companion's lips.

"Your Uncle Calvin has made his mark," he said.

"A black and blue one, I'll warrant," retorted Sylvia.

Jacob Johnson shook his head gravely. "He's made his mark, and your Cousin Jacob is only a farmer."

Sylvia's lips had nearly formed the words, "I thought so." Her eyes dropped involuntarily to the limp bag.

"I was wondering what you were intending to do here in Boston, little girl?"

"I can't stay in Boston," she returned, and her lip quivered. "Just think, Cousin Jacob, I'm spending Uncle Calvin's money when I hate him! Isn't it awful?"

"It is," returned the other, with conviction. "Hating folks is the very worst business anybody can invest in."

"I didn't mean that. Isn't it awful to be obliged to him? You don't know. You don't understand."

"Yes, I do," the speaker nodded. "I know the whole thing from A to izzard. Well, how do you expect to leave Boston, and what will you do?"

"Go on the stage."

"Oh, I guess not, little one. How old are you? You look fifteen, but you're more. I remember when you were born, and how I envied Sam."

"I'm nineteen."

"If you were going on the stage, it would have been well to be thinking of it even sooner. Have you had any experience?"

"No, except knowing an actor."

"And you're counting on his help?"

"Yes. I think I'd better marry him."

Jacob Johnson looked at her in silence. "You love him?" he asked at last.

"A—pretty well."

Her companion shook his head, smilingly. "Is he famous?"

"No. He says his chance has never really come."

"Young?"

"Oh, no."

Cousin Jacob threw back his head. "What a way out of trouble: to many an actor of that sort whom you love pretty well! You are very good to look at, Sylvia, my child, and any chance you could get on the stage would come from that. Bad business, hard business, dangerous business. Anyway, you're not strong yet. I have a proposal to make you. Come up with me to the farm for a while and drink milk."

"Why, Cousin Jacob!" Sylvia's cheeks had grown very white, and now a little color stole back into them. "Oh, you're kind!"

"Well, then, if you think so, come!"

"When?" Sylvia already had a sick dread of the little room upstairs and its thoughts.

"Now."

"To-day—to-night?" eagerly.

He nodded. "We may as well go to Portland to-night as to stay here. Then we'll go to the farm to-morrow."

Sylvia took his hand in both hers and looked earnestly into his eyes. "Forgive me," she begged.

"For what?"

"For being so—so snippy when I first came into the room; for not believing in you, nor wanting you."

Cousin Jacob took her chin in his hard hand and his shining gaze met hers.

"You weren't thinking right, Sylvia. Oughtn't it to make you easier on other folks? Other folks who didn't know you, who didn't believe in you, who didn't want you? They weren't thinking right, and they suffered for it afterward just as we all do. You'd have been kind to your Cousin Jacob in the end, anyway. They'd have been kind in the end to their niece. I saw you weren't glad to see me. I might have picked up my grip and left"—

"Oh, I'm so glad you didn't. I'm so glad you didn't! You'll wait while I pack?"

He patted her shoulder. "Yes, oh, yes. I'll wait."

[ ]

CHAPTER VII

THE MILL FARM

Sylvia's sleep that night in Portland was profound. A sense of peace and safety had grown upon her from the time she took the train out of Boston with her new companion; and the next morning she awoke refreshed, in a chamber filled with sunlight.

She dressed and went down to the dining-room of the boarding-house where they were staying, and found her cousin standing by the window looking out on the fresh green of tall elms that shaded the quiet street.

"Well, well," he said, turning to meet her bright eyes. "Spring outside, and spring inside. You've had a good sleep, little one."

He held out both his hands, and Sylvia put hers into them.

"Dear me, I'm afraid it's noon," for now she noticed that breakfast had been served.

"No, we have time still to make the train I told Cap'n Lem to meet, and eat a little something into the bargain."

The speaker moved to the table and rang a bell.

"Oh, you've waited too long for your breakfast," said Sylvia.

"No, indeed! Been watching the orioles that are bringing up a family out in that tree. Busy times, I tell you. Makes me think of the day Calvin and I wanted to rob an oriole's nest,—hang-birds, we called them,—and a little girl with short curls and a sunbonnet wouldn't let us do it; a girl who'd stand only a little higher than your elbow."

"Mother?" asked Sylvia softly.

Jacob Johnson nodded, and they sat down to breakfast.

An hour later they were speeding along in the train nearing the town which was their destination.

"I never have been on a farm, Cousin Jacob," said Sylvia.

"'Tisn't much of a farm we have here," he replied. "Just enough to raise a living for ourselves and the stock in the winter. The chief business is fruit and vegetables for the summer folks. Cal—the owner of the place likes this part of the world for what time he can get off in summer, so he bought this little farm and hired me to run it. That was ten years ago. I wasn't enjoying the business I was at in those days, but I was just learning to think right about things then, and I knew I'd be shown something else if it was best, and so I was."

"What made you know it?" asked Sylvia.

Her companion smiled without looking at her. "How do you know the sun is shining this morning and the apple-trees are in blossom?"

"Why, I can see that."

"I saw, too, Sylvia. It's a great thing when you begin to see."

The girl observed her companion's half-averted face curiously. "Who lives with you at the farm?" she asked.

"My two helpers. Good Cap'n Lem Foster and his daughter-in-law, young Lem's widow. She's an excellent cook. Can you cook, little one?"

"I?" the girl laughed. "I can make Welsh rarebit."

Her companion patted her hand. "Sam Lacey brought you up, didn't he?" he remarked.

"You see we always boarded," went on Sylvia, "because father—well, it was better; he was contented if he could play cards and go to a show sometimes; and when he had had too much he always kept away from me—he was so good about that."

"Too much?" echoed her companion questioningly.

"Yes, of course he'd go out with the boys some nights, but they always kept him away from me until he was all right again."

The matter-of-fact tone gave the listener a pang. His big hand closed over the one he had been caressing. "You're in a prohibition state now," he remarked.

"Yes, I remember. I've heard father speak of it. I was just thinking of a verse he used to say:—

"'Johnny and Jane,

Maiden and swain,

Never had tasted a drop of champagne;

Reason is plain,

They lived in Maine,

Where all the folks are obliged to drink rain.'"

"H'm. I wish they were," commented the other, regarding the black-clothed figure beside him. A thin veil was pinned to her hat in such a way as to cover the shortness of the soft curls. Her figure was erect, her coloring exquisite, her eyes innocent. She seemed to him like a jewel which had been set in base metal, carelessly guarded, and was now in danger of sinking into the mud of the highway. Laura's little girl!

He patted her hand again.

"Here we are," he said, as the train slackened and stood still. He took his own limp bag and Sylvia's plump, rubbed old one, and they moved down the aisle and out upon the platform.

"There's Lem." Jacob Johnson moved across the platform, and Sylvia followed him to where stood a two-seated wagon with a pair of strong horses. The driver leaned one arm on his leg as he looked passively at Sylvia. He wore a sweater and a felt hat, and had on blue overalls the color of his eyes. He was older than his employer, and a fringe of white whiskers surrounded his red, weather-beaten face.

"Howdy, Thinkright," he said, nodding as the couple approached.

"How are you, Cap'n Lem? This is my little cousin, Miss Lacey."

"Glad to see ye, Miss Lacey. Ye've got hahnsome weather," observed the old man. "Mawdrate, too, to what it has ben. Apple-trees hev all bust out."

"Yes, you must have had a fresh trip in this morning," responded Thinkright, as he saw to having Sylvia's trunk and the bags put on the wagon. At last he climbed in beside his guest. A slap of the reins set the heavy horses trotting deliberately.

Cap'n Lem sat halfway around in his seat in order to converse on farm matters, and Sylvia enjoyed the spring beauty about her as they drove out of the little town and took the country road.

"How's the jedge?" asked the captain at last.

"He's well. Told me to tell you he'd be after you for lobsters before long."

The old man gave a toothless smile. "Miss Lacey smaht?" he inquired.

"I suppose so. I didn't see her this time."

Sylvia's eyes began to look startled and questioning. Old Lem met her gaze. "Ye've got the same name," he remarked curiously, as the fact occurred to him, "same as Miss Marthy. Miss Marthy ain't no kin to you, is she, Thinkright?"

"No, except through this child. This little girl is a link."

"The missin' link, eh?" returned Cap'n Lem. "Well, all I kin say is she don't look it," and his shoulders twitched with delight. "The missin' link," he repeated from time to time, the utterance being always followed by a fresh convulsion of mirth as his sea-blue eyes roved to the visitor's grave face.

"Do they come here, Cousin Jacob?" asked Sylvia uneasily, under cover of the rattle of the wagon, "Uncle Calvin and Aunt Martha?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"Will they be likely to, soon?" asked the girl, her face hardening.

Her cousin shook his head, and she saw compassion in his shining gaze.

"Don't fret about that," he said quietly. "Hot weather in the towns is a long way off yet."

"What'd the jedge say in the matter o' the new shed?" asked Lem, when he had somewhat recovered from the enjoyment of his joke.

"He said he thought we'd better have the old one shingled."

"Turrible short-sighted, that's what I say," grumbled the old man; "but he ain't ever fer branchin' out, the jedge ain't. Why didn't ye talk him over to it, Thinkright?"

"I didn't feel strongly about it. He'd do it if I urged him; but it's just as you say, he doesn't want to branch out. The place serves his purpose as it is, and while he owns it he'll keep it just as compact as it is now."

"What judge are you talking about?" asked Sylvia.

"Jedge Trent, of course," replied Cap'n Lem. "There hain't never ben a time when he wa'n't as sot as the everlastin' hills."

"Judge Trent is this child's uncle," said Jacob Johnson.

"No offense, no offense," remarked Cap'n Lem equably. "Seems if she's related to a lot o' folks," he added, and at this moment a team of colts came prancing around a curve in the road, trying their best with every nervous spring to escape their driver's control. Cap'n Lem's heavy horses shrank and shied, then as the others clattered by they resumed their steady gait. The old man turned and saw the white, fixed look in Sylvia's face.

"They wouldn't do nawthin'," he declared consolingly. "They're both powerful mawdrate hosses. Besides,"—the speaker stole a half-mischievous, half-shy look at her companion,—"Thinkright'll tell ye it's one o' the seven deadly sins to be skeered of anythin' that's in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the sea that in them is."

The curving road was leading up a hill. The gray horses soon began to draw their burden at a walk, and when they reached the summit they stopped, for it was a time-honored observance for them to catch their breath at this point, as it was for the passengers, if strangers, to hold theirs.

The grandeur hitherto concealed by earth and forest suddenly broke into view. A limitless expanse of sea lay revealed, pierced by points of fir-crowned land that drove rock ledges into the liquid blue. Sylvia gazed fascinated at the snowy froth tossing itself against every gray point. Islands of varied shapes rose here and there, some tree-covered, some bare mounds of green, studding the rolling sapphire distances, and the girl's breast rose involuntarily to meet the untold miles of sparkling motion and the free, fresh, sunlit air. Her hands clasped together, and Jacob Johnson watched her white face with its wide eyes and mute lips.

The exceptional beauty of the May day caused even Cap'n Lem to expend silent approval on the familiar scene. He waited for a longer period than usual before he clucked to the horses, and they began a cautious descent of the winding road, their heavy hind-quarters braced almost against the wagon in their experience of sundry rolling stones.

"Hahnsome weather, surely," he remarked.

"I've never, never dreamed of anything like it," ejaculated Sylvia, and relapsed into dumbness.

Her host smiled, well pleased.

As the road descended to a level it approached the water of a small bay whose sheltered reaches watered a luxuriant evergreen growth among which appeared an occasional birch. These adorned the sloping bank, interspersed with rock, and turned the blue depths to green as they leaned toward the water as if in the effort to catch their own lovely reflections.

"We'll get out here and walk up to the house, Cap'n," said Thinkright. "Tell Mrs. Lem we'll be there by supper time. We had our luncheon on the road."

Sylvia took the hand her host offered in silence, and jumped out of the wagon. Cap'n Lem clucked to the horses again, and they rattled away.

"Why does he call you Thinkright?" the girl asked abruptly, as her companion paused on a clearing in the grassy bank to let her view the picture before them.

Jacob Johnson smiled. "They rather like nicknames in this part of the world," he answered. "I didn't realize how much I used the expression until all the neighbors began to label me. I knew I was always trying to be on the mental watch, and what is much in the mind will out, I suppose. How do you like this basin? We think it very pretty."

Apparently it was an inland lake that lay at their feet, sparkling and rippling in the triumphant fullness of the tide. At the point where the curving shore ran out to sea stood a large deserted tide mill on posts, midway in the water. Its shuttered windows looked like eyes closed against the surrounding beauty, and seemed protesting against the witnesses of its failure. Twice every day, like a tumultuous rushing river the tide poured water into the spacious basin, until its ripples clambered ten feet toward the eagerly bending trees, and later the capricious flood rushed back to the bosom of the sea. There had been enormous power at work under the old mill. What was lacking that it had fallen into disuse and closed its eyes upon an unappreciative world?

"It's a picturesque place, eh, Sylvia?" Thinkright repeated his question as she gazed and kept silence.

"Yes," she replied, "but the view above was—there aren't words."

"True;" her companion nodded. "You see a farm wouldn't do well at such a height, so we have to come down to shorter views and shorter distances; but it's a great thing to know that all the grandeur is there. We've seen it, and we know we've seen it, and we can't forget it; it's an inspiration to us. It takes a lot of wisdom to sail out on that ocean you saw up there, to avoid the ledges and to manage wisely in the winds; but to sail or row about on this basin is within the power of most landlubbers. Nature's always reading us life lessons, Sylvia, always."

"I'm not one of the afraid kind," returned the girl, with a toss of her head. "I only wish I had a chance to go out on that ocean."

"Yes, I know. On the stage, for instance," returned her companion. "The ledges and the squalls have no terrors for you."

"I hope I have some brains and some common sense," she answered.

Thinkright laid a kind hand on her shoulder. "It's perfectly true that neither ledge nor wind could harm you if you knew why. Daniel was safe in the lions' den, but it was because he knew why."

At the touch of his hand the girl shrunk away, and he instantly dropped it. Her blue eyes met his now, dark and cold. "I have found that you don't always think right," she said. "Why did you deceive me?"

Her companion looked at his watch.

"We'd better be walking along," he remarked, and they entered a well-worn path just wide enough for two that led through the woods, but kept close to the small salt lake, whose shining blue shimmered between the branches.

"I haven't deceived you, little one," he answered.

"You knew that nothing would have induced me to be a guest at Judge Trent's farm," declared the girl hotly.

"What's the difference?" asked her companion mildly. "You were eating his bread in Boston."

Sylvia's cheeks flushed. "I—I"—she hesitated, "I wasn't going to do it long."

"You shan't do it here a day longer than you wish to," returned Thinkright. "Now, child, suppose a case. Suppose your Uncle Calvin and your Aunt Martha had shown you perfect love instead of indifference, how would you have felt toward them?"

"Loved them, of course, and been thankful." Sylvia's angry eyes grew moist.

"That would have been a happier state of mind than what you have now, wouldn't it?"

"Of course." All the girl's sore spots were aching. "Why do you ask such a question?"

"Just to remind you of the fact. Now why should you let them make you lose the joy of being loving and thankful?"

"Why—how unreasonable! I can't help it, of course."

"Yes, you can. It's wonderful, Sylvia, but yes, you can. Think of being able to get out of the heat and turmoil of resentment and anger into the kingdom of heaven! You know where Jesus said it was?"

"No, I don't."

"Within you. The kingdom of heaven is within you."

"I guess not," returned Sylvia, with heaving breast. "Father always said there was plenty of old Adam in me, and I know it isn't human nature to be loving toward people that have treated me as they did."

"No, indeed it isn't. Your only chance is in finding out that you have a higher nature inherited from our Father in heaven, who the Bible declares is Love. When you allow that nature to have sway you will, as somebody has beautifully put it, 'think God's thoughts after him.' You will think mercifully and lovingly of your uncle and aunt, and forgive them as you would be forgiven. That way lies happiness."

The girl raised her blue eyes to his curiously. "So you consider it thinking right to live in a sort of a fools' paradise?"

Her companion smiled at her and his eyes shone. "I leave it to you if it isn't better than yours," he returned. "You believe in God, don't you, Sylvia?"

She cast down her glance. "I've thought lately sometimes that I'd like to; but he's so far away, on the outest edge of the universe."

"Why, what's the name of the place he lives in?"

"Heaven, I suppose."

"Well, where did I just remind you is the kingdom of heaven?"

Sylvia shrugged her shoulders. Thinkright's voice had again that tone that tapped at her heart as at a closed door, and instinctively she resisted it.

"Within you, little child," went on her companion, after a waiting pause. "God far away? 'Nearer than hands and feet,' Sylvia, 'nearer than hands and feet.'"

"I don't understand anything of what you're saying," returned the girl abruptly.

"Well, isn't this a pretty path?" asked Thinkright, looking about them. "It seems only yesterday that all these evergreens were loaded with snow." As he spoke, a song-sparrow near by poured out a flood of melody.

"Ah!" exclaimed the girl, her eyes glistening.

"Oh, if you like birds you are going to enjoy the Mill Farm. We have a very respectable choir in these woods. Now we could keep on in this path past the mill, 'way out to the end of the peninsula, but we don't this time; instead we turn right here and then"—the speaker waved his hand up a gentle incline, at the head of which stood an oblong white house with green blinds; "that's the Mill Farm."

"Judge Trent's farm." Sylvia's eyes met those of her host. "Why did you deceive me?" she repeated, gazing at him while they stood still in the soft grass.

Thinkright brought the knuckles of one of his hands into the hard palm of the other. "I asked you to come to the farm, didn't I? You were not thinking kindly of Judge Trent then; you were wasting your time thinking wrong about his wrong doings. If I'd said come and be your uncle's guest at the Mill Farm instead of at the Young Woman's Christian Association, you'd have questioned and doubted some time probably, and we might not have caught that evening train to Portland, and it was best for me to get home."

Sylvia bit her lip.

"Now there isn't one thing to do but think right," went on her host kindly, "and you'll be happy as a girl should be. You believe there's satisfaction in slapping back, and it galls you because you can't. It's the greatest mistake you can imagine. The satisfaction of slapping back only leads on to greater complications and final disaster in a logical sequence. Now, I'm not penniless, my little cousin. Just at present you're my guest."

"Oh, am I really, Cousin Thinkright?" cried the girl eagerly.

"Surely you are."

"Then I can begin to have a good time right off," she exclaimed, her white cheeks flushing as she took his arm in her relief.

He smiled as they walked slowly up the incline. "Always have a good time," he said. "The daughter of a great King should hide her head in shame if she admits any other thought."

[ ]

CHAPTER VIII

IN HARBOR

As Cap'n Lem's team drew deliberately up the hill to the house, his daughter-in-law and grandchild came out on the doorstep. "Hello, Lucil; hello, Minty," he cried.

Twelve-year-old Araminta, dressed in a red plaid frock, long of legs and arms, round of eyes, and with her braid beribboned in pink in honor of the unknown, looked her disappointment. "They never come!" she exclaimed. "We might jest as well as not rode to town, ma."

"Well, we couldn't 'a' known it, and no use cryin' over spilt milk," returned her mother. Mrs. Lemuel Foster had raised her pompadour exceptionally high this morning, and the knot at the back of her head had the psyche-like protuberance reserved for state occasions.

"Whoa, Jim. Hi thar, Pete," said Cap'n Lem, for his steeds began to exhibit spirit at the proximity of the barn. "Oh, yes, they come all right."

"Then who is it?" cried the two on the doorstep, in perfect unison. Thinkright's message had not specified the nature of his guest.

"The missin' link," replied Cap'n Lem. "Haw, haw, haw!"

The pent-up roar burst forth at last.

"Father, he hain't brought home a monkey!" Mrs. Lem's consciousness of the trail on her black brilliantine suddenly failed to support her company manner. "Do tell me you're foolin'!" she added acutely.

"Why, I think 't would be splendid!" cried Minty eagerly, watching her grandfather's heaving shoulders. "Where'd ye leave 'em, grandpa?"

"Daown t' the Basin."

Minty clapped her hands, and her round eyes shone. "To let it have a drink and run through the woods. Oh, what fun! I'll let it sleep with me."

Her mother gave her a sounding slap. "Hold your tongue, Minty Foster, and let the cap'n speak. Why did Thinkright ask me to get the best room ready, then? If a monkey comes into this house I go out of it, and I stay out."

"'Tain't a monkey, no, 'tain't," returned Cap'n Lem tearfully but pacifically; "but I made the best joke, Lucil, if I do say it. I'm laughin' yit. Ye couldn't 'preciate it till ye see her, then I'll tell ye, an if yew don't bust your sides"—

"Her? Is she young or old?" demanded Mrs. Lem, recovering a sense of the lustre on her brilliantine.

"Oh, pretty so-so," returned her father-in-law aggravatingly.

"Then they'll be up here in a few minutes," said Mrs. Lem, her black eyes snapping. "Get in out o' the wind, Minty, or you won't have no Boston left." She smoothed the limp roll into which Minty's front hair had been coaxed, and pushed her inside the open door, where the child lingered.

"You might tell who she is, grandpa," she called.

"Why, then,—come now, I will. It's mean to tease ye. It's Miss Lacey."

"Oh—!" A long-drawn sound of disappointment escaped from both his hearers. "Why couldn't Thinkright have said so!" exclaimed Mrs. Lem. "Miss Lacey'd jest as lieves have seen us in our every-day things."

"I don't care," said Minty, hopeful still. "Miss Lacey nearly always brings me somethin'."

"Take that pink ribbon right off your braid," commanded her mother, reëntering the house.

"Oh, no, ma, it goes so good with this dress," pleaded Minty, looking down affectionately at the red plaid.

"Let her keep 'em on," said Cap'n Lem. "They ain't no time to change. They're a-comin' right up. Thinkright asked me to tell ye they'd be here for supper. They hain't had nothin' but trash on the road, I guess. Miss Lacey looks kind o' peak-ed;" and so saying, the old man drove on to the barn, his eyes closed tight as he slapped his knee in enjoyment of this second witticism, possibly even better than the first.

Minty skipped around helping her mother with the tea things, but her round eyes were first to discern the pair who came in sight on the hillside.

"There they be," she exclaimed, running to the window; "and ma," in deep excitement, "they're hookin' arms!"

"What are you talkin' about?" exclaimed her mother, whose pompadour fairly heaved in the jerk with which its wearer rose from the oven at this significant information.

"They are," repeated Minty, secure in her tremendous discovery; "come and look. Do you s'pose," in a hushed tone, "do you spose they're beaux, ma?"

"Hold your tongue, Minty Foster; you're too young to say such things," returned her mother; but the pompadour continued in a state of violent unrest as Mrs. Lem gazed at the new-comers and rapidly reviewed the situation and its possibilities. "I can't say it wouldn't be fittin'," she murmured, as she stood behind her daughter.

The approaching pair seemed absorbed in close conversation as they sauntered slowly, the lady's face downcast and her companion's eyes upon her.

"I'll never stay here with her, though, never in this world,"—went on Mrs. Lem, "and probably she wouldn't want me to."

"Oh, ma, then we'll have to go back to Hawk Island. I don't want to," wailed Minty.

"Hush!" commanded her mother, giving the child's shoulder a nervous shake. "Don't you dare to cry, Minty Foster. I guess you lived at Hawk Island a good while, and you can do it again."

"Yes, but then pa wasn't drownded; and here we've got"—

"As comfortable as I've made Thinkright, too. I'd call it downright ungrateful if 't was anybody but him," went on Mrs. Lem, paying no further attention to her offspring than to give the small shoulder another warning shake. "I s'pose he thinks age is goin' to steal on him before long, and he'd better be provided with some sure caretaker, and I can't deny 't would be a fine thing for Miss Marthy. I can just see them sharp eyes o' hers lookin' around here and takin' 'count o' stock. I always thought she was terrible curious about how things went on here."

"P'raps they're married a'ready," hazarded Minty dismally.

The pompadour wavered almost to its fall in the start Mrs. Lem gave.

"Araminty Foster, how could you have such a thought at your age!" However, the housekeeper's fast-beating heart suddenly accepted the probability of the suggestion.

"Leggo my shoulder, ma." Minty wriggled out of the excited clutch. "I don't care, they walk jest the way Jim an' Kitty did when they come out o' church."

"What do you s'pose she's all in black for? Miss Marthy never had anybody to lose that ever I heard of. You don't suppose she'd go in black for one o' the Derwents, do you? It makes her look awful slim, and she walks so slow. Maybe she's been sick."

The couple were drawing very near. Thinkright evidently called his companion's attention to something in the top of the tall pine that grew near the house. Sylvia lifted her head, the chiffon veil floated backward, and she gazed long up into the tree while the watchers at the window stared.

"Why,—wha—" gasped Minty.

"Never mind!" ejaculated Mrs. Lem, in an altered tone. "Tell me, does my Boston look all right?" One trembling hand patted the imposing erection of shining black hair, while with the other the speaker pulled the open-mouthed Minty away from the window. "Now don't you never tell what we thought, Minty Foster, not if wild horses was to drag you. Remember!"

"All—all right," gasped the child, "but"—

"They ain't no but. The cap'n 's been playin' smart again an' fooled us. Don't you let on, Minty—never, never."

The series of jerks which accompanied the rapid flow of words was too energetic for Minty to retain sufficient breath to let on anything. Her mother trailed the brilliantine across the room with a self-command and return of composure truly remarkable, and throwing open the door, met the grave gaze of the guest with unsmiling majesty.

"How do you do, Mrs. Lem?" said Thinkright. "This is my young cousin, Sylvia Lacey, who is going to make us a visit. And this little girl is Minty Foster, Sylvia."

"Glad to see you, I'm sure, Miss Lacey," returned Mrs. Lem, giving the offered hand a loose shake. "Won't you step in?"

Minty said no word, but stared at the new-comer fixedly. The house door opened directly into the kitchen.

"We don't use front doors much in this part of the world," observed Thinkright, as he ushered in the guest.

"Will you step into the front room, Miss Lacey?" asked Mrs. Lem, with a grand air, "or would you prefer to go directly upstairs to your chamber?"

There was an atmosphere of the world about Sylvia which Mrs. Lem recognized at once from long experience with summer people; and secure in her pompadour, the psyche knot, and the shine of her best gown, she wished to show this young girl that her sophistication was shared even in a rural district. To be sure, the extraordinary telegram from Thinkright had left the family free to believe that it was a personage whom he was bringing home with him—probably some important friend of Judge Trent; and to have their varied guesses met by the fact of a white-faced girl in mourning was disappointing. Nevertheless, to Mrs. Lem's suspicious eyes Sylvia had a cold, proud air, which caused the housekeeper to glory in her toilet and be grateful for her knowledge of the world. It should be Greek meeting Greek.

"Oh, she'll go to her room," said Thinkright. "Cap'n Lem and I will bring her trunk and satchel right up. Supper's nearly ready, I suppose, Mrs. Lem?"

"Whenever you are," returned that lady elegantly. "I will accompany you, Miss Lacey."

Minty, though she said no word, prepared to follow, apparently not able to remove her round gaze from the visitor.

"You may make the toast, Minty," said her mother warningly, and the child took a reluctant step backward.

Sylvia followed the brilliantine up a narrow staircase.

"You're from Boston, I presume, Miss Lacey?"

"Yes, just now," returned Sylvia.

"Not your home, then?"

"No."

"There. Walk in. This is your chamber."

Mrs. Lem threw open the door of a blue-papered room whose ceiling sloped at one side, while on the other were two windows curtained in dimity.

"I didn't expect to see a room of this size," said Sylvia.

"Oh, it's quite a copious house," returned Mrs. Lem leniently, "for a country place. It took me some while to get used to these slopin' kind o' rooms. I ain't from these parts. I lived to Clarksville before I was married. There, you can loop them curtains back more if you want to."

"They're very pretty," commented the girl.

"Yes. Of course they ain't point de spray, but they do well enough for here."

"Looped back. Oh, I should think so," said Sylvia, pushing the folds aside and looking down the western decline of the hill, where a wide reach of Casco Bay came in view. Small snowy sails were flying out to sea, like a flock of white butterflies.

"I guess the fishermen think handsome weather's set in. Them are the mackerel boats," explained Mrs. Lem. "They ain't had a good chance for a fortnight. It's ben so cold and homely 'twa'n't plausible for 'em to go out." Mrs. Lem patted her pompadour.

"I can see a thousand Christmas trees from this window," said Sylvia.

"Yes, it's real sightly. Judge Trent has just the same view from his room. It's his favorite."

Sylvia's face fell. "When does he come?" she asked.

"Oh, he comes and goes all summer. He don't make no long stay except in August."

Here the two men with Sylvia's trunk and bag came noisily up the narrow stairs. It was a very moderate-sized trunk as those of summer people go, and the visitor lost some social prestige in Mrs. Lem's eyes as the latter observed it. Moreover, Boston was not the girl's home. Nevertheless, there was that unmistakable air of the world. Possibly she was from wicked, fashionable, reckless New York, and being in mourning had come here with but few possessions to recuperate.

"Wall, how are ye likin'?" asked Cap'n Lem, when they had deposited the trunk.

He set his arms akimbo and smiled toothlessly upon the visitor. "I said 'twas Miss Lacey, didn't I?" he added to Mrs. Lem, with a delighted wink.

"Yes, and you said somethin' else, too," retorted Mrs. Lem. "You say a lot o' things beside your prayers."

Upon this Cap'n Lem's cackling laugh burst forth. "She don't look it, does she?" he responded. "So ye're likin' all right, air ye, Miss Sylvy?"

"I could sit by these windows twenty-four hours," returned the girl.

"Might git a little hungry, mebbe?"

"Yes, Mrs. Lem," put in Thinkright. "Sylvia and I have had only sandwiches and sponge cake since this morning. We're all ready as soon as she has washed her face."

Mrs. Lem bowed affably, and the three went out and closed the door.

Sylvia moved to the dimity-draped dresser and took off her hat. She smiled at the memory of her recent interview. "Cousin Thinkright says she can cook, though," she reflected. "I hope he's a judge."

[ ]

CHAPTER IX

EDNA DERWENT

The supper was good, and for many weeks Sylvia had not eaten so hungrily. Minty's eyes continued to devour her as the guest devoured the biscuit and honey; and it required an occasional warning, "Eat your supper, Minty," from Mrs. Lem, to deliver Sylvia periodically from the round, expressionless stare.

"What delicious milk!" said the girl, as she set down her empty glass; "and this cream would make city people open their eyes."

"It don't seem to me it's quite as rich as common," returned Mrs. Lem. "We often have it so thick it has to be dilated with water."

Sylvia met Thinkright's eyes and laughed. "That is a frequent necessity in the city," she said. "I wish it weren't."

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Lem raised her eyebrows, "I know it. Of course it takes such legions o' milk to supply the cities you can't trust 'em around a pump. Have some more o' the lobsters, Miss Lacey."

"Oh, no, thank you."

"Then," said Thinkright, "perhaps you'd like to go and help Minty bring home her Daisy."

"Who is Daisy?" asked Sylvia of the solemnly staring child, who had been mute throughout the meal.

"My cow," drawled Minty.

"I'm mortally afraid of cows," declared Sylvia.

"Daisy ain't ugly," returned Minty.

"Then if you'll promise to take care of me"—

"I will," declared the child, her cheeks flushing with the pleasure that her drawl could not convey.

"She usually gits the cow afore supper," explained Mrs. Lem, "but to-day she couldn't very well." She looked complacently at her child's toilet. "You needn't mind the dishes, Minty."

At the permission the child fled from the room and clattered up the back stairs. The others rose from the table, and Mrs. Lem assumed a large apron and began gathering up the dishes.

"You may help if you like, Sylvia," said Thinkright. "We want you to feel at home."

The girl hesitated. She disliked wrecks of meals, and the way for her to feel at home was to do nothing at all. She began awkwardly to take up the silver.

"No, no, don't do it, Miss Lacey." Mrs. Lem perceived at once the unaccustomed touch, and her New York hypothesis was strengthened. "You hain't any apern, and I do think," with an airy laugh, "you might git unpacked afore they set you to work."

"Oh, yes, let her help till Minty comes," said Thinkright, with the manner of conferring a favor upon the guest, who echoed a faint agreement and went on gathering up the knives and forks, while her host left the house. Her ordeal did not last long, for Minty, still flushed of cheeks from the excitement of the occasion, soon reappeared, the splendors of her recent costume as completely vanished as were Cinderella's at the stroke of twelve.

Her dark calico clung around her slim little body, and the white string that tied her braid was in evidence.

"Put on your sweater, Minty, and run up and git Miss Lacey's jacket for her. It's real fresh," said her mother.

The sun had ceased casting sparkles across the sea when they went out of doors, and the shadows were lengthening. The loveliness of the increasing rose-light in the west caused Sylvia to forget all annoying doubts as to where to pour the water from the half-empty glasses, and all objections to the remains of lobster.

"What a pretty place you live in, Minty!" she exclaimed, as they walked back of the house through an orchard of small apple trees, gnarly and stunted enough from their struggle with the elements through the winter, but with all bumps and twists veiled now in rose-tinted clouds of white bloom.

"Yes, 'tis. I like it a whole lot better'n Hawk Island."

"Where is that?"

"Oh, off there." Minty pointed a vague finger behind them seaward. "We lived there when father went fishin' afore he was drownded. I was real small, and I didn't have no cow. Daisy was born the year we come here, and Thinkright gave her to me."

"Oh, she's a pet, then; so I needn't be afraid of her."

"No-o, she wouldn't hook nobody! Beside, didn't you know if you're skeered o' things they're likely to happen?"

"Oh, are they? Well, luckily I'm not scared of many things."

"Where do you live?" asked Minty, renewing her grave stare at the admired guest.

"I,"—Sylvia's mind flew back over a panorama of abiding places. "A—I think I shall have to say nowhere," she replied after a pause. "I'm a tramp, Minty."

The child regarded her, unsatisfied and skeptical. "Why, where's yer mother and father?" she drawled.

"I,"—again the mutability and doubtfulness of all things were brought home to Sylvia. "I don't know," she replied. "They are dead."

"There ain't any such thing," returned Minty. "When folks seem to be dead they're goin' on livin' jest the same. Thinkright says so."

"Does my cousin Thinkright know everything?" inquired Sylvia smiling.

"Of course he does." There was a brief pause, and then the catechism continued.

"How old be you?"

"Guess?"

"I don't know. You've got on long dresses and yer tall, but yer hair's shorter'n mine."

"Yes, I've been very ill and my hair all came out. It used to be straight as yours. I went to bed with my long hair braided smoothly, and got up with these new little kinks."

"I wish I knew where I could ketch that kind o' sickness," returned Minty, regarding the bright auburn rings enviously, "but don't tell Thinkright I said so," she added, with an afterthought. "He thinks bein' sick's as wrong as lyin'."

"My cousin Thinkright has some very odd ideas," returned Sylvia.

"There's Daisy a-mooin'," exclaimed Minty, her face lighting. "She hears us talkin'."

"Well, don't forget to tell her how charming I am, will you? It gives me the shivers to think I'm walking straight up to a pair of horns and not a fence in sight."

"She won't do nawthin';" the child smiled at the comical grimace her companion made, and a turn in the path revealed a white cow at the end of her tether looking eagerly toward them. A clump of evergreens rose beyond her.

"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.

Well, his sister's child would show him—— At the revengeful impulse Thinkright's face suddenly rose before her with the words he had used about slapping back.

"The evening is perfect," exclaimed Sylvia aloud. The rose-light had begun to crimson the water. It drew her. She ran down the slope to the belt of birch and evergreen which surrounded the basin. Rays from the sinking sun were kissing the sightless upper windows of the Tide Mill until the weather-beaten shutters grew pink.

Sylvia entered the fragrant path she had traversed with her host that afternoon, and followed it toward the point of land beyond the mill. Suddenly a voice clear, bright, yet low-pitched fell on her ears, and almost simultaneously she caught a glimpse of the speaker between the trees.

The girl stood on the brink of the water, talking to some one in a small boat whose sail was flapping. Sylvia could not proceed without coming into sight, so she waited in order not to disturb the adieux. The boat had evidently just landed this passenger, who carried a bag and was dressed in a dark tailor suit.

The skipper, a sun-burned young fellow, was showing a row of strong white teeth at some sally from the lady when Sylvia's eyes fell upon him.

"I wish ye'd let me carry the bag up fer ye," he said.

"No, I'm going to punish myself for not being ready in time for you to sail into the Basin. I ought to know by this time that it's no use arguing with the tide."

"Always seems more sot here than anywhars," agreed the boy.

"Besides, I want you to have time to telephone for that carriage. Don't let them make any mistake. I must catch the one o'clock train."

"Yes. When are ye comin' fer good, Miss Edna?"

"Oh, in just a few weeks. June, some time. It'll be pulling me, pulling me, from now on, Benny."

She smiled, and Sylvia could see her face. Black hair that shone with a fine silken lustre grew thickly about a white forehead. Brows that lay like smooth touches of satin swept in two fine lines above gay, kind brown eyes. Her smile merited the adjective "sweet" more than any Sylvia had ever seen; but the boatman's next words startled the listener.

"Miss Lacey comin', too, I s'pose?"

"Of course. What a question to ask a lone, lorn girl?"

"She didn't stop long last season."

"No; for I was in Switzerland. Why should she? But I can't spare her now, and she's written me that she'll come just as usual, so Anemone Cottage will be itself again."

"Well"—the boy hesitated for words to express his pleasure—"we can stand it if you can," he finished.

"All right, Benny," she laughed. "Get to Gull Point as quick as you can. I've just one idea now, and that's the telephone. Good-by." She waved her hand as he set the sail and took his oars to pull into the wind.

Sylvia saw him nod and smile back. Then that happened on which she had counted. The stranger came up into the path, and without seeing the watcher, walked swiftly away.

Sylvia had seen no home in the vicinity beside the farmhouse, and the familiar mention of Miss Lacey made it doubly certain that this low-voiced stranger, this girl whose broad a's and lack of r's sounded oddly upon Sylvia's Western ears, was going fast as her trim feet could carry her to Thinkright's home. A strange feeling beset Sylvia. The newcomer's perfect costume, the assurance and refinement of her manner, even the unconscious adoration in Benny's sea-blue eyes, all pointed to a superiority which made Sylvia vaguely resentful of her.

What Miss Lacey had she been talking about? Aunt Martha, of course. Hadn't Cap'n Lem spoken of her also? What was she to this girl,—this raven-haired, charming girl who was nobody's despised niece?

Sylvia's heart beat hotly, and she began to run. Why was she wasting time when she wished to see what sort of reception would be accorded this stranger? Possibly, even, she was a favorite with Judge Trent. The thought gave Sylvia a forlorn pang, but she hurried on. Soon she again caught sight of the newcomer, who was passing out of the woods and starting up the incline that led to the house. Sylvia at once began to move slowly, her feet noiseless on the grass.

Cap'n Lem and Thinkright now came in view, returning from the barn, and Sylvia's eyes grew large as she heard the stranger's gay cry and the men's response.

They hastened down the hill to meet her. Cap'n Lem took her bag while she laughingly received their surprised welcome, and she threw her arms around Thinkright's neck and kissed him. Neither of the three observed Sylvia, who followed at a distance until they went inside and the house door closed upon them.

Pausing, to wonder and speculate, the chill of the evening made the girl shiver. The door had shut her out. She felt lonely and forlorn.

[ ]

CHAPTER X

CAPITULATION

When Sylvia finally drew near the kitchen she heard talking and laughing within. Turning the handle and opening the door, a happy domestic scene was revealed, of which the strange girl was the centre. Her hat and jacket were lying on a calico-covered couch, a large apron enveloped her cloth gown, and she was wiping the dishes as Mrs. Lem washed them at the sink. Minty was running back and forth putting them away. Thinkright and Cap'n Lem were seated near the stove, and as the door opened a burst of laughter escaped from them at some remark of the visitor.

At sight of Sylvia's white face her cousin arose.

"I was just beginning to wonder where you were, little girl," he said kindly. "I want you to know Miss Edna Derwent. This is my cousin, Sylvia Lacey, Edna."

The latter came forward, holding in one hand a plate and towel, while she offered the other to Sylvia's cold acceptance.

"I'm fond of the name of Lacey," said the visitor, smiling into the other girl's grave eyes with the same gay, sweet expression that a few minutes ago had rested on Benny the boatman. Thinkright noted the quick hardening of Sylvia's face.

"Your Miss Lacey is aunt to this one, Edna," he said, "but Sylvia doesn't know Miss Martha yet. She has lived in the West all her life."

Mrs. Lem's sharp ears absorbed this information.

"Your aunt keeps house for Miss Derwent in the summer time at her cottage on Hawk Island," he went on, turning to Sylvia.

"I have a mother who unfortunately doesn't like the island, Miss Lacey," explained Edna, returning to the sink. "Take this plate, Minty, please."

"Guess you want another wiper, too, don't yer?" asked the child.

"I'll take as many as you'll give me," responded Miss Derwent. "I'd like a fresh wiper every two plates; but don't you encourage me, Minty, or I shan't be popular with your mother. Fill up the kettle, too, there's a dear. I'm a reckless scalder. Why, the stove lid's under that kettle. I wondered why it wasn't hotter."

"Wait till I find the hooker," cried Minty, diving down under the stove in search of the iron.

"Minty Foster, how many times have I told you never to take that hooker off the string?" said her mother reprovingly.

"I jest wanted it to crack nuts with," explained Minty, as she fished the lifter out triumphantly.

"Well, don't you never untie it again!" responded her mother severely.

"Yes, you'll crack it some day," remarked Edna, "and then what would you do, miles from a hooker as you are? I was telling you, Miss Lacey, that I have a mother with only one foible,—she doesn't like our island. You will see what heresy it is when you come over there. So Miss Martha has taken pity on me the last few summers, and I think she loves it as much as I do."

Sylvia's embarrassment was painful, as the speaker paused, looking at her in the natural expectation of a response.

"I don't know her," was all the reply her lips could utter.

"Then perhaps you will meet her first at my house," returned Edna brightly. "That would be very pleasant for me, I'm sure. I should enjoy the novelty of making near relatives acquainted."

"I shan't be here when she comes," responded Sylvia quickly.

"Indeed? Why, I'm sorry. I supposed you were to be a summer guest. You know Judge Trent, of course."

Sylvia's hot blush under the innocent question caused her cousin to come to the rescue again.

"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."

"How stupid of him! Oh, how stupid of him!" was Sylvia's angry thought.

"I met him once only, on business," she said briefly.

Her manner and the blush mystified Miss Derwent.

"But didn't you like him? He used to be the most popular boy. One summer when mother was with me at the island she invited him to come to us, but his vacation had already been bespoken. I should like to renew our acquaintance. Perhaps Judge Trent will ask him here now. I hope so."

This girl had everything, everything. It wasn't fair. Sylvia bit her lip to keep back the excited tears. Her host saw the agitation in her face and quickly changed the conversation, talking to Edna of her affairs at Hawk Island, occasionally turning to Sylvia to explain some reference, but giving her the opportunity to keep silence.

At last, to the great relief of one of the company, bedtime arrived.

"Do forgive me for yawning," said Edna, "but I've had a strenuous day with Benny Merritt. I'll warrant the poor boy has been asleep for hours, I worked him so hard; but the cottage is in fine shape and all ready for Miss Martha and me to descend upon it. Oh, you must stay," turning suddenly to Sylvia. "You must come over to Anemone Cottage and make me a visit." Edna did not say a long visit, for the impression made upon her by this mute, cold girl in black was chilling; but she seemed to need cheering, and Edna was prepared to do any missionary work which would be a help to her dear Thinkright.

"Thank you, but I couldn't," returned Sylvia hastily. "I couldn't, possibly."

"I wonder what is the matter with her?" thought Miss Derwent, as she made ready for bed that night. "Perhaps her bereavement is very recent. At all events, she has come to the right place to be helped."

Sylvia, as soon as she had closed the door of her chamber, went to the window and knelt down with her hot forehead against the cold glass. The stars were twinkling in an invisible sky, and she could hear a rhythmic sound of many waters.

That girl had everything. It wasn't fair. She knew Mr. Dunham well. He was popular, he was admired. He was of Edna Derwent's world. She was doubtless popular and admired. What would they both think of Nat? Nat,—stout, red-faced, not too careful of his hands. Sylvia had often demurred concerning his careless habits. Now she knew that they alone made him impossible. There were many other things that made him impossible, and strangely, they were all points which were the opposite of certain characteristics she had observed in Mr. Dunham during their brief but informal and almost intimate relation. Miss Derwent's speech and pronunciation reminded her sharply of his, and as her thought dwelt upon this enviable girl making ready for her healthful, care-free slumber in the apartment usually sacred to Judge Trent, the burden of Sylvia's vague and helpless future bore down upon her and seemed heavier than she could bear. Long-repressed tears were rising scaldingly to her eyes when she heard a light tap on her door.

It might be she! She shouldn't come in! With a light bound Sylvia was at the door, pressing upon it.

"Who is it?" she demanded in a choked voice.

It was Thinkright's voice that answered her. "Gone to bed, or sitting up, little one?" he asked.

"Well—I'm sitting up—so far," she answered, and she opened the door slowly.

"I thought you might be feeling a little homesick, the first night in a strange place," he went on, "and I wanted to say good-night to you once again."

A great, resentful sob rose in the girl's breast, and with a sudden impulse she flung both her arms around his neck.

"Kiss me," she said chokingly. "You kissed her. How did she dare to kiss you!"

Thinkright drew the speaker out into the corridor as he caressed her cheek. "Come downstairs a few minutes," he said. "We might disturb Edna if we talked up here. Can't have you go to bed thinking wrong," he went on when they had reached the living-room where one tiny lamp still twinkled. "Now sit right down here by me, Sylvia. My heart feels for you. You miss your father, I know, and I wish I could be the comfort to you I'd like to be; but we must all at last find comfort in the great Father of all. We learn little by little that we can't lean on any arm of flesh."

Sylvia bit back her sobs and pressed her eyes. "Poor father is better off," she said. "I wouldn't want him back. He suffered, and he said there wasn't any place for him here any more,—and there isn't for me, there isn't for me!" she added passionately in a voice that shook.