And profiting by the momentary diversion, Sybil flew past her mother to the room she shared with her sister. Dorothy had placed the candle high on a small bracket that held their shabby little hymnals and prayer-books, and as Sybil entered she saw directly before her the young girl on her knees at the bedside praying. The light fell upon her uplifted, happy face, making a faint aureole in the bright hair that at the back fell in a long queue. A tenderness came into Sybil's eyes, but as they fell upon the upturned soles of Dorrie's feet from beneath the night-dress, rising mischief triumphed. She looked at the pink round heels, at the whiteness of the hollows, and then the pinkness again across the balls of the little trotters; and, resisting not a moment, stooped and drawing her finger zig-zag across them both, produced a wild lash out, a startled: "Oh! ouch!--for ever and ever--Amen! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Syb!" And before Dick could pull his head out from beneath his wing and set it in the right direction, the bed was pillowless; those useful articles serving as ammunition in the battle royal raging gloriously between the dressed and the undressed, while happily neither one guessed they were bidding farewell to childish romps in this, their last great pillow fight. And across the hall the subdued John bowed in silence, and allowed the conquering Letitia to place her foot a little more firmly upon his neck. The light had gone out, 'tis true; yet, as the victorious one could talk on perfectly well in the dark, it was nothing short of a merciful dispensation that permitted meek and conquered John, under cover of the darkness, to sleep--sleep quietly, almost attentively, thus escaping actual madness. For as constant dropping weareth away a stone, so constant talking weareth away the listener's brain! CHAPTER IX THE ACCIDENT--A FRIEND IN NEED Early the next morning the girls prepared for their ride cityward, for, though their sharp young eyes saw Mrs. Lawton's follies and her faults; though they writhed under her despairing lamentations and blushed at her outrageous boastings--perhaps because they were guiltily conscious of sitting in judgment upon their mother--they yielded her prompt obedience whenever she gave a command. Mr. Lawton elected to walk with them to the station, and Lena, on her way upstairs to the "frau mistress," bearing on a tray a breakfast of simple material but of amazing size, nodded and smiled, and with unconscious impertinence commented upon their looks, declaring with hearty admiration that they were "youst lofely right away down to der ground!" Dorothy laughed and said, "Take good care of mamma, Lena!"