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. * * * * * Some weeks slipped by, and early winter was turning the old white house into a very Franz Joseph Land. "Oh!" cried Dorothy one day, "to think of your having to buy all the coal, Sybil! What stupid things the conventions are! I may accept any extravagant outlay of money in flowers or candy or fruit, but the entire family would be under the grand taboo if I received a ton of coal or a barrel of flour." "Is the flour out, dear?" quickly asked Sybil, laying down her play-book. "Have you been worrying your poor little head? Don't hide things from me, Dorrie! If I have the money, I love to spend it for home. Of course my salary is small, but, dear heaven! what should we have done without it in this old sieve of a building, where fuel simply melts away, and the grate or stove is always calling out for more? Oh, Dorrie, if I could only make a hit in Juliet! Mr. Thrall would surely raise my salary; yes, in spite of the cost of those costumes that fall upon him, poor man! Are they not a wonderful people--Claire Morrell and Stewart Thrall? Think of the kindness of that woman to me, a nobody! And think of such an actor as Thrall--Stewart Thrall--taking the trouble to teach me the business of Juliet, his very self. Oh, I shall be so frightened! Dorrie, Mr. Roberts has been very patient, going over and over the scenes with me; telling me where I am to stand and where the other people will be, and what they will do, but he never has taught me anything about the actual acting of Juliet. And now to think that I am to be coached at God-mother Van Camp's house by Mr. Thrall in person! I only hope and pray he may not light up as he does sometimes when he is acting, for, if he does, I shall forget my own lines in rapturously listening to him. Do you know, Mr. Roberts is sorry that Mr. Thrall ever undertook the management of a theatre?" "Why?" asked Dorothy, "he is successful--he must make a great deal of money?"