The girl's tone was sympathetic. Sylvia was of a different type from those who usually sought the a.s.sociation. Her appearance suggested romance.

"Who is it?" she asked eagerly, half rising. "A man?"

"Yes'm."

"A tall man, very straight?"

"He ain't so awful straight," returned the maid doubtfully.

"Thick hair?" (quickly).

"Yes'm."

"Handsome teeth?"

"I--I didn't see his teeth."

"Splendid chin?"

"Law, ma'am, his beard covers his chin."

"Beard!" Sylvia sprang to her feet. "You're crazy."

"No, I ain't, ma'am. Oh, 'tain't the gentleman you came here with, and the superintendent said was one o' the best connected folks in Boston.

'Tain't him. I saw him. He's grand. I guess this one is sort of a country gentleman, but he's awful pleasant-spoken and his beard's as white as the driving snow."

Sylvia flung herself back on the bed. "You've made a mistake. He asked for somebody else."

"No, ma'am," returned the maid; "because I thought first he said 'silver lace,' and I thought maybe he was a peddler, 'cause he had a bag; so I told him we didn't want anything, and he was real nice. His eyes sort of twinkled up, and he said _he did_ want something. He wanted to see Miss--Sylvia--Lacey, real slow; and was you here? and I said you was, and he told me to tell you a cousin of your mother's wanted to see you, and his name was Jacob Johnson."

"I never heard of such a person," said Sylvia. "Does he look shabby--poor? It sounds like an impostor."

"N-no," returned the girl doubtfully. "He ain't exactly a Rube, but then you'd know he wasn't a swell, either. He looks awful nice out of his eyes. I'd like to have him _my_ mother's cousin."

This was somewhat encouraging, but country cousins were no part of Sylvia's plan. "You go down and tell him I've been ill. I'm not able to see him," she said at last decidedly.

"I don't like to one bit," returned the maid. "I kind of hate to disappoint him." She lingered a moment, but Sylvia shrugged her shoulders and turned her face to the wall, so the girl departed.

Only a couple of minutes had pa.s.sed when the knock sounded again on Sylvia's door, and the maid pushed it open without awaiting permission.

"He asked was you able to be dressed," she began, rather breathless from her quick run, "and I said you was, and he said for me to tell you he'd come about the telegram you got."

Sylvia was still holding the telegram. She started. So Mr. Dunham was not coming. He had not admired her, then. He did despise her as a cast-off poor relation. A flush rose to her cheeks, and she sprang from the bed quickly. "I'll go down," she said briefly.

"Well, I'm real glad," declared the maid. "That wrapper looks all right. I wouldn't stop to change."

She gazed admiringly at the brilliant tints of Sylvia's complexion as the girl ran a comb through her reddish curls.

"Indeed I shan't change for him," responded Sylvia. Her heart was hot within her. Dunham might have come himself. Now she should never see him again, and she didn't care. The only reason she had wished to meet him was to show him her inflexibility and independence despite her acceptance of the despised money he had forced upon her.

She swept by the maid, who continued to gaze after her with admiration, and went downstairs to the reception room.

There she found a man with gray hair and short white beard, sitting near a window, a somewhat limp bag on the floor beside him. She paused inside the doorway and stood regarding him.

There was nothing interesting in his appearance. She had had all she wanted of relatives. If those who would have been creditable would none of her, she certainly would none of this countrified individual and his claim of cousinship.

"Good-afternoon," she began coldly. "You say you have brought me some explanation of Mr. Dunham's telegram?"

"Why, why," said the stranger, 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 att.i.tude, 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's face crimsoned, and she pulled her hand from its kindly prison.

"Then he has broken his word," she said pa.s.sionately.