ow to
kiss you!"

Thinkright smiled. "Edna," he said, "began that when she was twelve
years old. It was the year I first came here, and I let her ride on the
hay-wagon and gave her the sort of good times she had never known in
her life. Her father is a chronic invalid. The doctors recommended the
sea, and quiet, and great simplicity of life, so they built Anemone
Cottage. Mrs. Derwent is a woman devoted to the world and fashion, but
she made heroic efforts to endure Hawk Island for her husband's sake
during several seasons. But there wasn't any right thinking done in
that cottage except what Edna did, a child as happy there as a bird let
loose from a cage; and after a while they gave it up. Edna continues to
come, every season they'll let her, and I can assure you, little one,
she needs the refreshment. She needs it. Brave, beautiful Edna!"

The peroration was uttered as an audible soliloquy, and it caused the
listener to pull her hand from the calloused palm where it had been
clinging.

"Good-night," she said abruptly, and started to rise.

Thinkright seized her arm gently and drew her back beside him. "Just a
moment," he said quietly. "You said a minute ago that you had me; as if
I counted for something."

"What's the use, when your interest is all wrapped up in that girl?"

"Oh, you poor little thing, you poor little thing!" he murmured.

His thoughtful tone made Sylvia hot.

"And every word I say you despise me more," she flashed forth. "You
know you're sorry you came to Boston to get me. I can't be any
different; I'm just myself."

"Of course you are. That's the comfort that we have. You'll find
yourself some time, and discover a very different being from the one
you are conscious of now. I'd like to see you get well, little one, for
your mother's sake and your own, and mine."

"I am nearly well," returned Sylvia, surprised at the sudden
digression.

Her companion shook his head. "Fevers of body are bad, but fevers of
mind are worse. Will you take me for your doctor, child, and let me
help you to find the sane, sweet, capable Sylvia Lacey who manifests
her inheritance from the Father of us all?"

The girl's eyes grew moist, and she bit her lip. Her poor, vain sense
struggled, but she was sore at the heart which this tone of his always
pressed strangely.

"I'd better go away," she said in a voice that trembled.

Her companion placed a kind hand on her shoulder. "If you were to go
away, you would n