nger, gazing at her musingly as he slowly rose
from his chair; "is it possible that you are Laura's little girl?"

He stood noting her repellent attitude, and Sylvia recalled the maid's
ardent recommendation of the manner in which he looked out of his eyes.

"You resemble her very little," he continued, in a slow, quiet voice as
pleasant as his gaze. "I hadn't remembered that Sam Lacey was so
good-looking."

This familiar mention of her mother and father seemed to establish the
stranger's claim, but Sylvia was reluctant to grant it. Her hand was
still against every man, and her look did not soften.

As she kept silence the visitor continued. "You've heard your mother
speak of her cousin Jacob Johnson, perhaps?" he asked wistfully.

"Never," returned the girl briefly.

The man nodded. The lines in his forehead accented his expression of
patience. His loving eyes studied the young features before him.

"Yes," he sighed, "you were still only a little girl when she went
away, and her life was full of other things." A pause. "I wanted to
marry your mother, Sylvia." Something in his tone knocked at the door
of the girl's heart. She closed it tighter and kept silence.

"Wanted to so much that I never married anybody," he went on with the
same slow quiet. "She preferred Sam Lacey." The speaker's lips parted
in a slight smile as tender as his eyes, which began to shine again.
"As I say, I'd forgotten how good-looking Sam was."

The knocking at Sylvia's heart grew clamorous. This man's voice touched
some chord; and he admired her. She demanded that.

"I've tried to think right about it ever since I knew how," he
continued with simplicity, "but there were long years when I didn't
know how, and when the whole world seemed unprofitable. It's a real
gift to see you, my little Sylvia."

The loving sincerity of the closing words shook that sensitive string
in the girl's sore heart painfully. Her eyes filled while she
endeavored to retain her self-control.

"It _is_ an unprofitable world, full of coldness, full of disappointments,"
she answered brusquely.

He nodded. "True, true," he said, and advancing he took her cold hand
gently and led her to the chair near his own.

They sat down together.

"That sense of things is the flat, stale, unprofitable stuff we hear
about," he added. "You've been sick, too, they tell me."

"Who could tell you that?"

"The young man in Judge Trent's office. Dunham's his name."

Sylvia'