"The Tide Mill hurt beyond pardon, eh?" he returned. "Well, possibly it _didn't_ relish the epithets of the men who sank their money in it." The flight of fancy was unprecedented for the speaker. He was sensible of unwonted excitement in a possibility. His companion was still dimpling at the lean figure in the roomy frock coat and high hat. Laura had been a small woman. The judge was considering that if his companion should rise she would equal or overtop his height. Starved. Very needy. So Thinkright had put it. Nonsense. This _riante_ dryad of the birches could be nothing to him. "Shows a small disposition, though, after all these years," he added after the brief pause. "Don't you think so? Nursing injuries and bearing malice and all that sort of business?" The smile died from Sylvia's face. She half averted it, and trailed her fingers through the quiet ripples. "Thinkright says so," she answered. And then the judge knew that those young lips so suddenly grave had kissed his picture good-night, that that young head had been pillowed on his sister's breast, and had constituted whatever brightness was in her troubled life. A strange tightening constricted his throat, for, the temporary heat of the girl's exertion with the oars passing away, he saw her cheeks pale, and it was with a grave glance that she looked at him again. "Do you know Thinkright Johnson?" she asked. He nodded. "I suppose he is the best man in the world," she added. "Don't you?" The high hat nodded again. Judge Trent would not have given unqualified assent to so sweeping an assertion, but, poorer than Dunham on a recent occasion, he had not even monosyllables at his command. It did something novel to him to remember Laura and then picture this girl alone at the Hotel Frisbie. They floated in silence for nearly a minute, then the judge spoke: "Thinkright has some very good ideas. It's an excellent practice, for instance, to forgive your enemies, and even on some special occasions to stretch a point and forgive your friends." The young girl looked up at him. If this stranger knew her cousin he could not be quite a stranger. "He is trying to teach me to think right," she said simply. "It seemed at first as if it were going to be easy even though it was different; but, oh, it's hard sometimes! I get sore inside just as my arms used to in the gymnasium at school. Father wrote me a note once to get me excused from physical exercise; but," she gave a little laugh and shrugged the shoulders of the blue sweater, "Thinkright won't write me any note of excuse." "H'm," thought the judge uncomfortably, "I guess she's got some of the Trent old Adam to buck up against." His gaze did not remove from the half-averted head with its sun-crowned, red-gold aureole. "Who'd have thought Sam Lacey's carrot-top could be made over into that?" he mused. CHAPTER XIII UNCLE AND NIECE