"There is no truth in it," with a light, scornful laugh. "The families are neighbors, you know; and I suppose the boor takes a look for encouragement. I shall not go away this summer. I can find pleasanter employment." She pressed his hand, and smiled, as their eyes met. Sons-in-law were very little to one, except in the way of respectability, but a daughter like Sylvie would be such a comfort! Fred had no need to marry a fortune, but Sylvie would not be poor. CHAPTER V. NOW that Fred Lawrence had come home, there was no need of going so often to Hope Terrace, Sylvie thought. Time never hung heavy on her hands; for she was not indolent, and there were friends and pleasures. Miss Barry had a conscientious misgiving that Sylvie ought to be taken about like other young ladies; but she shrank from fashionable life herself, and could not resolve to trust her darling with any other person. Beside, Sylvie always seemed contented. She was content indeed; at least, with her home and her aunt. Up-stairs, just out of her sleeping-chamber, she had a studio, chosen because this room, of all in the house, had the finest view in summer, when the tall old trees shut out so much. From here there were two exquisite perspectives. The trees and houses were so arranged that a long, arrowy ray of light penetrated through a narrow space over to a small rise of ground called Berry Hill on account of its harvest of blueberries. Two old, scraggy, immense oak-trees still remained; and she used to watch them from their first faint green to the blood-red and copper tints of autumn, when the sun shone through them. Down behind he dropped when the day was done; sometimes a ball of fire, at others bathed in roseate hues, tinged with all the wondrous grades of color, and making fleecy islands in a far-off, weird world, dream-haunted. She used to study the grand effects of shifting light, that made the hill bold and strong, or fused it into dreamy harmonies that seemed to have the subtile essence of music; then contrasts that were abrupt and apparently dissonant, quite against well-known edicts of human taste. Who was right,--the great Author of all? She smiled to herself when she heard people talk so glibly of nature, as if the one little rose-leaf were the whole world. The other picture held in its soft, still, light, an old-fashioned, low-gabled house with wide eaves; a broad doorway, with the upper half always open in summer; a well with curb and sweep and bucket where farm-hands came to drink; a pond with a shady side, where cows herded in their peaceful fashion, wading knee-deep on hot days, chewing their cud contentedly at others, browsing through golden hours; fields of glowing grain, then tawny stubble, a bit of corn with nodding tassels, and not infrequently a group of children, picturesque in this far light. It all stood out with the clearness of a stereoscope.