"Poor little Dorrie!" she thought; "denied every pleasure that a young, healthy, pretty girl longs for! Skimping and saving, turning and cleaning and pressing, rarely going out dressed entirely in her own garments, never complaining, always smilingly winking back threatening tears, smoothing rough places, straightening out the tangles for others, and when the burden becomes too heavy, the cloud of small torments unendurable, instead of bursting into bitter railing or furious tears as I do, Dorrie, with the absolute, unquestioning faith of a child, goes to her room and prays, asking that her burden be made lighter, or, if that may not be, that the blessed Lord will give her strength and patience and please make her understand what it is wisest for her to do in that special emergency! Poor little trusting ninny! As though God could trouble about her infinitesimal affairs! As though He would distinguish her faint appeal when once it had fluttered upward and been caught in that mighty whirlwind of a world's anguished prayer that, with a thousand times Niagara's sound, goes thundering to the Throne! Dear Dorrie! Such a patient little slave as she is to mamma, too! But I'll take a few hours from work and find out what is going on here--yes, even if I have to question Lena!" She shook her head. "An indecorous and undignified proceeding that, but what else can I do? Poor papa never sees an inch beyond his handsome old nose! If it concerned anyone but mamma, Dorothy would tell me everything herself, for we have confided in each other ever since we had to 'make up' the secrets we shared. But she and papa always make a sort of fetish of mamma. It's strange, too," said Sybil to herself, "for mamma was very little to either of us, indeed, in the old days of luxury. As that English housemaid once said of us, 'we were little better nor horphans for all our finery and our sweets!' Mamma was always out, or going out, or just getting ready to go out. Or there were people staying with her, and we had to keep close to the nursery. We should just have been servant-bred but for papa. Shall I ever forget his face the day he asked Dorrie some question, which she answered with a hearty, 'Bedad! I have then!' After he had read us a lecture on the subject of English as it should be used by intelligent and obedient little girls, Dorothy lifted her repentant, small countenance to be kissed, saying, 'Please forgive me, papa!' and he caught her up in his arms and said, 'Oh, baby girl, it is for you to forgive us--forgive us!' And when he was gone we talked and talked, and finally concluded that 'us' meant papa and Delia, because she was all the time saying 'bedad' and 'bad-cess,' and such words. That same night I heard mamma's voice, high and excited, from her dressing-room. She was saying, 'I really do _not_ see why I am to be held responsible for the aimless chatter of children of _that_ age. Of course, when they are older, and it's worth while, I shall impress