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.