is Judge Trent."

"Uncle," returned Sylvia briefly.

"Ah. One of the detested."

She lifted her shoulder with a gesture of dread. "I mustn't say so,"
she answered.

He watched her through a moment of silence.

"I wish you luck getting over it," he remarked dryly. "It's against
you--being a Trent."

"But," said the girl simply, "Thinkright says if I'll only keep
remembering that I haven't any relations except God, and His children,
I shan't find anybody to hate."

The judge's eyes snapped. "H'm. I hope there's something in that. I
hope there is. I've never paid much attention to Thinkright's little
pilgrimages among his rose-colored clouds, but perhaps it might be to
my advantage to do so; perhaps it might. The fact is, girl,--I'm sorry
to confess it because I know it will be unwelcome news, but--I'm your
Uncle Calvin."

Sylvia grasped the side of the boat, grew pale, and stared. "Oh, no!"
she exclaimed. "He has a full beard. He has a round face."

"Once upon a time, as the story books say, he had."

The girl's eyes closed and her lips compressed.

"Sylvia, remember the Tide Mill." The judge's voice was rough with
feeling. "Your eyes look like its shuttered windows. I'm not a monster.
I'm only a human machine that didn't know how to stop grinding. I've
come up here to tell you so. I thought our introductions were better
made away from the family, and I expected to find you walking in the
woods."

Sylvia opened her eyes again, widely, apprehensively. "Is Aunt Martha
here, too?"

"No. I thought one of us would be sufficient. I saw Miss Derwent in
Boston recently. She gave me news of you."

"Uncle Calvin," began the girl in a low, uneven voice, "I have said
very uncivil things. Why did you deceive me?"

"I had no idea at first that you were my niece. I looked for some one
totally different."

Sylvia's heart was beating with unwonted quickness. This was the man
who had been willing to pay frugally for her living until she could
make one for herself, while too indifferent even to see her; but
Thinkright's talks had turned a searchlight upon her own predilections
and expectations, with the effect of distracting her attention somewhat
from the shortcomings of others. Her present excitement in the
discovery of her uncle was mingled with mortification at the
remembrance of what her thought had once demanded of him. The boat
rocked gently over the blue ripples; the sunshine illumined alike the
burnished gre