"No, indeed," interrupted John hastily; "but he does want to send you, Miss Martha. He empowered me to request that you take the trip, permitting him to be at all expense." "He did, did he?" retorted Miss Lacey, her eyes drying and snapping again. "Well, I should think it was about time he stopped sending folks on that errand," she continued, with a superior contempt for consistency. "It's about time he went himself. I guess he feels pretty small about the whole thing if the truth were known. Isn't that touching about Sylvia's kissing his picture? How did he feel when he read that, Mr. Dunham?" "Impossible to tell. All he said was 'get out.'" Miss Lacey's nostrils dilated. "Well," she ejaculated, "all is I know if I'd mar--that is," she added faintly, "I'm glad Laura didn't live to see this day. He has a great deal less excuse than I have, Mr. Dunham, and I have little enough." Miss Martha finished with sincere feeling. "You tell Judge Trent for me, Mr. Dunham, that he had better go to that farm himself." CHAPTER XII A LOST OAR Mrs. Lem's awe of the new Miss Lacey was short-lived. The fact that she came out of that vague locality known as the West seemed to soothe the housekeeper's latent suspicion that the young girl might be "big feeling." Sylvia was reticent even in the presence of Edna Derwent, and this silence could not proceed from snobbishness; moreover, her spirits rose after the departure of the Boston girl, and Mrs. Lem decided that Thinkright's guest was, in spite of her slim height and the dignity of her black garments, only a shy girl who needed encouraging. "Do you think Miss Derwent's pretty?" she asked Sylvia after Edna had made her adieux. "Very," answered Sylvia, who was enveloped in the apron the guest had worn the night before, and was awkwardly wiping dishes as the housekeeper washed them. Minty had gone to school. "I know folks most always think so," said Mrs. Lem, whose pompadour had collapsed with her theories of Sylvia's New York origin; "but I don't know," she went on judicially, "when you come to diagnose Edna's features they ain't anything so great. Her nose wouldn't ever suit me,--kind of insignificant." Mrs. Lem's own feature was of the strong Roman variety. "They're just rollin' in gold," she went on. "It's a wonder to me Edna sets such store by Anemone Cottage when they've got such a luxuriant home in Boston." Sylvia listened with lowered eyes intently fixed on her work. She had wakened this morning with a sensation of relaxation. Some habitual tense resistance had given way. She was subdued and conscious of relief, as if from a cessation of responsibility. She realized what caused this as her interview with Thinkright rushed back upon her thought. He saw through her. That was her mental admission. He did not admire her at all, and yet for her mother's sake he would not despise her. He had made her view herself in a totally new light.