n the spotless cloth and seemed to spread
mischievously. "Dear, I meant to be so careful."

"Not a bit of harm," returned Edna. "That is a feature of the
huckleberry season. The stain vanishes under hot water."

Sylvia's eyes clung to the spot. A thought had suddenly come to her
like a lightning flash. She knew vaguely that her hostess was saying
pleasant things, but she could not follow them.

"Eat your pie, Sylvia," said her aunt. "We always have a second piece.
Jenny's feelings would be hurt if we didn't."

The girl commenced eating again, mechanically. "You picked these
yourselves?" she said. "They grow for anybody to pick?"

"Yes, indeed," replied Edna. "I enjoy it. I think Miss Lacey considers
a berrying expedition a good deal of a pleasure exertion."

"They always ripen first in such shut-in fields," objected Miss Lacey.

Edna laughed. "The kind Mrs. Lem would call hot as Topet."

"Oh, I'd love to pick them," said Sylvia. "Do they grow around the Mill
Farm, Thinkright?"

Her eyes were shining as she asked her question.

"No. Nowhere around us,--that is, nowhere near. I've often wondered at
it."

"Stay here, and go with me, Sylvia," said Edna cordially. "We'll let
Miss Martha off, and you and I will take Benny and make a day of it."

"Oh, I'd love to!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I'll try to come over soon."

"Not at all. Always make the most of a bird in the hand. You're here
now. I'm going to keep her,--oh, as long as I can, Thinkright."

He smiled at Sylvia, who smiled back, still with the excited shining in
her eyes. "She seems willing, I must say," he remarked, pleased at the
prospect of the two girls thus becoming acquainted.

The hour before he had to start back was spent by them all together, at
first on the rocky ledges below the house where the caldrons of foam
and fountains of spray made the finest show, and then roaming through
the fragrant woods. At each new vista Miss Martha noted the narrowing
of her niece's eyes and the absorption of her gaze.

"I guess you have some of your poor father's artistic taste," she said
to her at one pause.

"I wish my father could have seen this place," was Sylvia's reply.

When the time came for Thinkright to make his adieux she clung to him.

"I declare I believe she's homesick at the parting," said Miss Lacey to
Edna. They two were standing on the piazza and the others a little way
off on the grass; but Sylvia was not homesick, she was whispering to
her