So Sybil, having passed the pocketbook over to Dorothy's management, knowing that she would get twice as much out of it, gave herself up to study and to dreams. John Lawton's misty old eyes noted how she sweetened under this small ray of prosperity; missed the old sharpness from her tongue, the sting from her words; saw the increase in her beauty, and was tortured with shame that his child's happiness came to her from strangers. His wistful, apologetic eyes often hurt Sybil to the heart, and one morning, on her way to the orchard, play-book in hand, she saw him leaning against the grape arbor, gazing at her with such jealous pain in his face that suddenly she understood, and, throwing an arm about his neck, she exclaimed: "I am so happy, father, I just have to stop and thank you!" and she kissed him soundly. He drew away a little, saying, incredulously: "Thank me? Your happiness does not come from me, poor little one; to my sorrow, dear--to my sorrow!" "Not from you?" cried the girl. "Why--why, what could I have done without your consent, dada? That was the very corner-stone of my whole plan!" His face brightened, then clouded again, as he asked, hesitatingly: "Supposing I--had--refused, daughter; would--would that have made any difference to you?" "Oh, father!" cried Sybil, reproachfully, "you would have closed the incident with a vengeance--I could not have moved another step!" Seeing the troubled old face beginning to brighten, she laid her arm upon his shoulder, and added: "Everything depended on your word. No one wanted to help a girl who had not the backing of her own father. So, you see, all hung on your 'yes' or 'no,' dear!" And the poor old gentleman, comforted and heartened up, kissed her and patted her back and told her, quite patronizingly, she should have had more confidence in his willingness to assist her, and, seeing she was studying Jessica that morning, he devoted himself to a careful reading of Shylock down under the monster willow. Thus Sybil, with passions and desires all sleeping, studied and dreamed, and wondered vaguely would she always be unknown, or would she, some day, some far away radiant day, be a crowned Queen of the Drama? And to Dorothy--the patient, practical Dorothy, who knew to the hour how long a pound of tea would last; who knew to a spoonful how much sugar, salt, or baking-powder there was in the house--there had come a habit of musing, a trick of sudden and utter abstraction at the most improbable moments, when her hands would drop idly at her sides, and, gazing into space, she would wonder vaguely why all her anxieties, worries, and annoyances could be so swiftly drowned in the depths of a pair of gray eyes, whose steely look always darkened and softened when their owner spoke to her. For so swift is the blossoming of love when once the magic hour has struck, that already Leslie Galt, the friend of three weeks' standing, was her reliance and her ever-quoted authority.