d the speaker was going to cry.

"She didn't me, either," he responded cheerfully. "I didn't think
anything of it. I should have been more apt to notice it if she had."

Sylvia gave an April smile. "She didn't kiss me this afternoon. She was
strange and unlike herself. She's been so all day. I've been thinking
that perhaps I ought not to go back," finished the girl slowly.

"Perish the thought," returned Dunham hastily. He was surprised to find
how earnestly he objected to any such desertion. "You must go back if
only to set your thought about it straight. Ask"--No, he would not
advise her to ask Edna. The latter might tell her frankly. "Edna is
very much taken up with her carpentering," he went on. "Let her get
over that."

"She has been so very kind to me," said Sylvia. "I want to be sure not
to impose on her,--not to be in her way," and she looked so childlike
and self-forgetful as she spoke, that her companion, bewildered and
flattered as he was by the Look, and the Idea, indulged in a brief and
pointed soliloquy:--

"Whether she is a gypsy or a saint, or whatever she is, she's a peach."

Sylvia's eyes grew wistful as the familiar home landmarks came in view.

"There is the Tide Mill," she said half to herself.

"Picturesque old affair, isn't it?" returned Dunham. "You were speaking
a few minutes ago of sketching. That's a good subject."

The girl nodded, and her eyes rested on the mill pensively.

"Just as coldly heart-broken as ever," she said.

"What do you mean?"

She gave a slight gesture toward it. "Can't you see?"

Dunham gazed at the old building, standing above the inrushing tide.

"It does look rather forlorn, doesn't it," he returned, "with those
blank shutters, tier upon tier."

"Yes, tear upon tear," answered Sylvia, with a faint smile at her own
fancy. "One almost expects to see the salt drops raining down its face;
but it is too tightly closed even for that. I was like that when I
first came here, but Thinkright helped me, and I mustn't get so again,
no matter what happens. I was very, very mistaken and unhappy in those
days. You know I was."

The last words were uttered very low, and Dunham nodded.

"And now I've a longing, of course it's a silly one, that the Tide Mill
should open its eyes too, and cheer up. I can't bear it to go on making
a picture of the way I used to feel. It's as if it might drag me back
again. To-day the feeling comes over me especially, because my heart is