Edna had placed Turkish towels and their clothing in a shed at the back of the house, and when finally the rain began again to cut their eyes and shut away even the nearest view, she succeeded in dragging the reluctant and dripping Sylvia thither, and they again made ready for the house.

"Come in, you two mermaids," exclaimed Miss Lacey when they appeared.

She threw more logs on the fire. "I began to think you had gone to see the land 'where corals lie.'"

Edna laughed and took the pins out of her hair, so that it rolled in damp lengths about her. Sylvia's curls were gemmed with bright drops, and both girls were rosy and sparkling from their tussle with the gale.

"Sylvia has the only hair that ever ought to go to the seash.o.r.e,"

remarked Edna, looking with open admiration at the piquant face under the jeweled diadem. "You can take a chair, Sylvia, but I shall have to turn my back to that lovely fire."

Sylvia stretched herself luxuriously in a reclining chair before the blaze while her hostess sank on the rug and spread her dark locks to the heat.

"You do look like a mermaid," said Sylvia.

"Mermaids sing," remarked Edna. "Would you like to hear me sing?"

"I don't know," replied the other slowly, "whether I could stand one more thing. I think I might pa.s.s away if you should sing, the way you look now."

Edna laughed. "I feel like singing," she said, and jumping up, went to the piano and pulled over the music.

"I think Miss Lacey started me by speaking about 'Where Corals Lie.'

I'll sing the Elgar 'Sea Pictures.'"

Edna had an even, contralto voice, and sang with the charm of temperament; but to the sensitive listener the enchantment of the sea seemed to linger in the tones of this creature who, with the sparkling drops still shining in her dark hair, poured out such strange and moving music. It stirred Sylvia to the depths.

At the close of the song "Where Corals Lie," she sighed some comment, and Miss Martha spoke:--

"That isn't what you'd call a _pretty_ tune, not near as pretty as a lot that Edna sings," she remarked, "but that song goes right to my backbone somehow and chills right up and down it; and the way she says,--

'Leave me, leave me, let me go And see the land where corals lie,'

it sort of comes over me when she stays long down on the rocks in a storm, and makes me feel queer."

"That's right, Miss Lacey," remarked Edna, without turning around. "I'm a very sentimental and desperate person."

"You are when you sing, my dear," retorted Miss Martha with conviction.

"Now I'll give you the Capri one," said Edna, "but I never saw a day at Capri that fitted it as every day does here;" and with wind and wave outside making an obligato to her flowing accompaniment, she sang "In Haven."

"Closely let me hold thy hand, Storms are sweeping sea and land, Love alone will stand.

"Closely cling, for waves beat fast, Foam flakes cloud the hurrying blast, Love alone will last.

"Kiss my lips and softly say, 'Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day; Love alone will stay.'"

Sylvia's hands were pressed to her eyes when the song was finished, and her aunt looked at her curiously, for she saw that she could not speak.

Had Miss Martha been told that the young man in Judge Trent's office had any part in the tumult of feeling that sent the color to Sylvia's temples and the tears to her eyes she would have scouted the idea as too wild for consideration.

"That _is_ a very pretty one," Miss Martha remarked in the silence that followed. She spoke to ease what she felt to be a tense situation. At the same time she winked at Edna, who had turned about to face her auditors. Sylvia's eyes remained hidden so Miss Martha continued:--

"There's something about those words that makes me think of 'Oh, Promise Me.' That's my favorite song. Do see if you can't remember it, Edna."

But the latter rose and came back to the fire.

"I must dry my hair," she said. "That's the drawback of not being a real mermaid."

She sank again on the rug near Sylvia.

The latter uncovered her flushed eyes and reached one hand down to Edna, who took it.

"If you hadn't--hadn't had anything," said Sylvia unsteadily, "you'd understand."

"I do," replied Edna; but she was mistaken. Though she pressed the hand very sympathetically she did not understand.

CHAPTER XX

THE POOL

The next day being Sunday Miss Lacey vetoed the excursion after berries as a snare to Benny Merritt's feet, which should be turned toward the little island church, whether or not they would be.

"Never mind," said Edna philosophically; "the longer we wait the more berries we shall find. We can count on good weather for some time now."

"You wouldn't want to sail anyway to-day," said Miss Lacey. "It looks blue enough, but there are white caps left over from yesterday that would never get _me_ to ride on them, I can tell you."

"The Sound isn't rough," replied Edna; "but we'll all be good girls and write letters. Come down to the Fir Ledges with us, Miss Lacey. We'll write there."

"Thank you, I've outgrown that," replied Miss Martha briskly. "Sit with your heels higher than your head, and no decent place to lean, and just at the most important moment have the wind double your paper over or blow it away. No, thank you; but there's room at the table for all of us if you'll be sensible."

The table was a round one placed in an angle of the s.p.a.cious piazza, which had been gla.s.sed in as protection from the prevailing wind.

Here Miss Martha was wont to gather her writing materials, and with her back to the view, not for fear of its temptations, but in order to get a better light, indite many an underlined epistle to her friends at home. She sometimes had Edna's company, but that could not be to-day.

The young hostess was enjoying too much exhibiting the charms of her beloved habitat to the guest who thrilled in such responsive appreciation at the moments and places where others had often proved disappointing.

"No bribe could induce us to be sensible," was Edna's response to Miss Lacey's suggestion. "We are going to the Fir Ledges, and there is no knowing when you will see us again."

"Oh, yes, there is," returned Miss Martha dryly. She was seating herself for her enjoyable morning. She was going to send Selina Lane some of Jenny's receipts. "There will be halibut and egg sauce, lemon meringue pie, and various other things served in this house at 1.30,"

she went on, "and I have an idea that you'll take an interest in them."

Edna and Sylvia exchanged a thoughtful look. "Perhaps we may," said Edna.

"I'm sure of it," added Sylvia with conviction.

Miss Lacey's satisfied laugh followed the pair down the woodland road, and she looked after them.

"Everything has turned out so well," she thought. "I remember how this summer stood up in my mind as one of the obstacles to letting Sylvia come to me, for I didn't see where I could leave her while I came to Hawk Island,--and now, just look. I really do think Edna has taken a fancy to the child, though even _I_ can't always judge of Edna's feelings by her actions."