Dunham's feelings were inexpressible, and his one devout thanksgiving was that Edna was ignorant of his own banality. Suddenly she ran out of the room to the head of the stairs. "Miss Lacey," she called, "will you bring Judge Trent up here?" The request startled Miss Martha into a sudden panic. "Dear me, Calvin, Edna wants us. I'm afraid Sylvia is ill. She looked it this noon. Oh, I assure you she never would have stayed upstairs from laziness, never in this world. She"-- But Judge Trent was already far in advance of the speaker, and Miss Lacey tripped upstairs after him, briskly. "Come here, both of you, and I will make you proud," said Edna as they entered the room. "These sketches are your niece's work." "Aren't they the queerest things you ever saw?" asked Miss Martha, adjusting her eyeglasses the better to peer at the brown sheets. "But there's the Ledges, and there's Beacon Island, and the West Shore, and our own swimming pool from over on the Point, and"-- "Judge Trent, do you know about such work?" asked Edna. "Do you care for this sort of thing?" "Yes, in an ignorant sort of a way. Certainly I do." "If you found Sylvia talented, you'd help her, I'm sure you would." "Of course. Why? You appear excited." Edna touched the lawyer's black sleeve as he stood in his customary attitude, his hands behind his back. As she went on it was evident that she fought with tears. "Pardon me for asking if Sylvia has any money? Has any allowance been made her?" "Not by me, and it's not likely by Thinkright." "It must be so! She can't have any money." The girl paused to swallow. Judge Trent regarded her, the corners of his mouth drawn down, at a loss to understand her manner, and ready to defy whatever accusation she was about to bring against him. Edna continued: "Sylvia went into the field, and spent hours selecting the largest, darkest berries she could find. She came home and stewed them into a substitute for paint. You remember, Miss Martha, the evening you thought she was cooking. Then she found this rough manila paper, and contrived a stump out of something. Think how she must have longed to paint, how she longed for materials"-- "Why didn't you tell me?" demanded Judge Trent brusquely. "How was I to know?" "I didn't know myself," returned Edna. "None of us knew. She was too modest, too delicate, to tell. She went alone to do these things, to try her powers. She had come to the place where she meant to tell me. She said so to-day. Doubtless she believed in her ability at last." Edna again seized the pillow slip and shook out a number of bits of paper that had sunk to the bottom. There fell out with them various stained, tightly-rolled paper stumps, which had evidently been used in lieu of brushes. The three heads gathered together to look at the sketches of themselves and the family at the Mill Farm. "By Jove, she has got it in her," repeated Dunham, regarding a drawing of himself as he had appeared to be asleep in the boat.