"Oh, yes, father," answered the Angel, "but, you see, I wasn't born that way, same as you was. It seems a pity, doesn't it? You're perfect and I am not. I can't help the way I was born, can I, father?" "No; no one is perfect, darling," replied the father. "You are," answered the Angel, and she gave her head a defiant toss. "You and my mother and my beautiful Lord Jesus up in heaven. But I'll try to please you, father, so don't knit up your forehead." Sibyl as she spoke laid her soft hand on her father's brow and tried to smooth out some wrinkles. "Same as if you was an old man," she said: "but you're perfect, perfect, and I love you, I love you," and she encircled his neck with her soft arms and pressed many kisses on his face. On these occasions Philip Ogilvie felt uncomfortable, for he was a man with many passions and beset with infirmities, and at the time when Sibyl praised him most, when she uttered her charming, confident words, and raised her eyes full of absolute faith to his, he was thinking with a strange acute pain at his heart of a transaction which he might undertake and of a temptation which he knew well was soon to be presented to him. "I should not like the child to know about it," was his reflection; "but all the same, if I do it, if I fall, it will be for her sake, for hers alone." CHAPTER II Sibyl skipped down to the drawing-room with her spirits brimful of happiness. She opened the door wide and danced in. "Here I come," she cried, "here I come, buttercups and daisies and violets and me." She looked from one parent to the other, held out her flowing short skirts with each dimpled hand, and danced across the room. Mrs. Ogilvie had tears in her eyes; she had just come to the sentimental part of her quarrel. At sight of the child she rose hastily, and walked to the window. Philip Ogilvie went down the room, put both his hands around Sibyl's waist, and lifted her to a level with his shoulders. "What a fairy-like little girl this is!" he cried. "You are Spring come to cheer us up." "I am glad," whispered Sibyl; "but let me down, please, father, I want to kiss mother." Mr. Ogilvie dropped her to the ground. She ran up to her mother. "Father says I am Spring, look at me," she said, and she gazed into the beautiful, somewhat sullen face of her parent. Mrs. Ogilvie had hoped that Sibyl would not notice her tears, but Sibyl, gentle as she looked, had the eyes of a hawk. "Something is fretting my ownest mother," she whispered under her breath, and then she took her mother's soft hand and covered it with kisses. After kissing it, she patted it, and then she returned to her father's side. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ogilvie knew why, but as soon as Sibyl entered the room it seemed ridiculous for them to quarrel. Mrs. Ogilvie turned with an effort, said something kind to her husband, he responded courteously, then the dinner gong sounded, and the three entered the dining-room.