A strange commingling of delight and reluctance seethed in Sylvia's brain, and her thought flashed to Hawk Island. "To go so soon!" she said, scarcely aware that she spoke. "Yes, immediately, or it would not be worth while. Such an opportunity, Sylvia; and, if I read the sketches aright, the motive power that lay behind your guarding of those big berries would drive you much further than to the White Mountains." "Yes. Oh, yes, Edna. What a friend you are!" "Then it is settled?" "Yes, indeed, if Uncle Calvin"-- "Oh, leave Uncle Calvin to me. His dry bones are about to be vitalized." CHAPTER XXXII A SOFTENED BLOW The scanty sunshine of another New England winter had fallen on the ink stains in the offices of Calvin Trent, and spring had come again. Brave little green twigs approached the window and looked curiously in at the occupants of the two neighboring desks, and the younger man sometimes returned their challenging with speculative and not unhappy eyes. One morning in early June John found in the mail a letter for Judge Trent, which he passed across to the other desk, unopened. "'M, h'm," commented the judge, taking it, "another hymn of praise from Sylvia, I suppose." He regarded the envelope meditatively. "That girl has worked well, Dunham." "The Keenes say so," returned John. "They're greatly interested in her." "Edna has been her good angel, for sure, in all this business," said the lawyer. "I thought you were the angel in the affair." "Edna was the power behind me. She persisted until I was glad to buy peace. She's been indefatigable, that girl: found the right place for Sylvia to live, and kept an eye to her all winter, introduced her to the right people, often had her in her home. She's a brick, Edna Derwent is. Something more than style and fuss and feathers about her. Yes, Boy, you think I don't see anything; but do you suppose I haven't taken notice of the way you've mooned around the last month? Do you suppose I'd have overlooked your tearing up that deed last week, and putting us to all the extra trouble, if it had been on anybody's account but Edna's? Do you suppose I'd have let you go to Boston twice as often as was necessary, if I hadn't approved? Yes, _sir_." The speaker struck his desk, with a sharp snap of Sylvia's letter. "I _approve_. If a man must marry, let him accomplish something by it. None of this Tennyson village maid business. Let him find a girl with money and position and the right sort of connections that will do him some good and give him a lift in the world. Marriage ought to have some frosting besides what's on the wedding cake. Folks dream on that, and very appropriately. It's the stuff dreams are made of, in more senses than one; and after that flimsiness is over, there ought to be something substantial left. Just as many attractive girls who have something as that haven't. It's sheer perversity when a poor young man sets his heart on additional poverty. Let the Cophetuas have a corner