As Sybil tossed off her street garments and prepared to make Dorothy more comfortable, she said, heedlessly: "No wonder you believe so in your God, when He never fails to save you from danger. Let me put myself behind a vicious, bolting brute of a horse, and the Supreme Power would leave me to the broken neck appropriate to the situation; and a good diamond and a lover saved for—why! why! silly girl! I meant no harm! Did I say something irreverent? Oh, don't you understand? My heart's so full of gratitude for your safety, dear, that my head is turning a bit silly. You would trust Him anyway? Of course you would, you loyal little Christian! I have known your prayers unanswered many a long month, and that you thought the fault was somehow yours. You are one of those wonderful beings who could wring joy out of sorrow, believing that 'whom God loveth, He chasteneth'! I am not saint enough for that, but at this moment my very heart is beating out the triumphant old Doxology, 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow!' because you were not killed yesterday; but are here at home only a little chipped and scratched, and because you have a promised husband and I have a strapping big-promised brother. And I do pray, I honestly do! on my knees, dear! that God will bless you both, and so renew your love each day that it may never grow old. And there's a kiss for you [kissing her on the lips], and here's a kiss for him [kissing Dorothy's cheek], and, ah! you simpleton—you—you boiled beet! Oh, why have you an arm in splints? To blush so idiotically before just me! Oh, what joy it would be to pound you with a pillow! But sit up instead, and let me brush that tangled hair. The idea of poor papa trying to arrange it for the night, and yet his efforts were to be preferred to Lena's. Now, miss, while I am engaged behind you with the brush, you may proceed to explain how it feels to wear a solitaire—such a solitary solitaire! Poor little ringless-fingers girl! And you may also throw some light upon the feelings of a young person who engages herself to be married over her elder sister's head."

But Dorothy had groaned a little from pain, and Sybil silenced her teasing tongue, made Dorothy all orderly and comfortable, cast hemp-seed recklessly before noisy Dick to buy his quiet; and then, seating herself by the bed, was studying Juliet's lines while Dorothy dozed, until awakened by the arrival of a big bunch of flowers and a note.

For several days there seemed to be an odd constraint upon the household. John Lawton, always rather silent, now became fairly dumb. He never entered the sitting-room, but remained out of doors nearly all the time.

Mrs. Lawton looked heavy-eyed and nervous, and evidently greatly missed Dorothy's care and gentle coddling. Lena she had attempted to ignore; but, alas, she depended too utterly upon that sole servitor for food and drink and warmth and order. So she had to content herself with giving commands in a very cold voice, using very large words, and averting her face during their delivery. Her manner during her short visits to the girls' room was one of poorly restrained anger. She had not seen Dorothy alone since her attempted lecture on the day of the accident; and, as John Lawton had never resumed the interrupted subject of the hated engagement, she remained uninformed as to Leslie Galt's bright prospects until that day when, with nerve worthy of respect, he had presented himself before the irate mother of his sweetheart, and, remembering her contemptuous disregard of the famous warning against "Greeks bearing gifts"—knowing, indeed, that she really had no use for Greeks otherwise engaged—he kept some suggestive small packages in evidence as he entered the sitting-room.

And as he brought himself a chair and placed it close to her never-resting "rocker," he recognized in the buzzing swarm of verbal wasps she turned loose upon him the words "disrespectful—unnerved—paralysed—disingenuous—stealthy—infringing—intruding—inveigling," and with failing breath the last warning injunction: "And let me hear no panegyrical eulogy on poverty, if you please, sir!"

Then with a wisdom far beyond his years he retired to the background his lover's raptures, his glowing admiration for her daughter's beauty; and bringing forward the thrilling question of "pounds, shillings, and pence," they soon resolved themselves into a "ways and means committee." And presently Letitia's wasps turned to bees, and the bees began to bear the honey of sweet words.

Then she accepted most graciously these offerings, and bridled and declared she "already felt quite old at the prospect of mothering such a great wicked man!" And when he made the usual complimentary rejoinder, she pronounced him "saucy," and "wondered, if he talked in that fashion to her, what on earth he would not say to Dorothy!" and was full of regret when he insisted upon going out to look for Mr. Lawton. Then up she went to the room above, where Dorothy was holding the play-book in her free hand and giving the cues, while Sybil repeated her lines to see how nearly letter perfect she was.

Both girls exclaimed: "Why, mamma!" Her expression had changed so completely and her walk was so important—quite her old-time society movement. And then as she approached the bed they caught the first glimpse of a long fine chain of exquisite workmanship, strung at intervals of five or six inches with pale pink coral beads that were in turn girdled with a circle of tiny diamonds.

Mrs. Lawton ostentatiously lifted her lorgnon, and again the girls exclaimed: "Why, mamma!" And then, as she stooped over to kiss Dorothy, she remarked, quite patronizingly: "Yes, our Leslie is very generous and thoughtful. He wanted me to have a little memento of your engagement, dear fellow!"

She did not add that the other memento was a large Strasbourg pâté. She kept that fact, like the pâté, to herself.