“I guess it has been ten years, Sylvena,” he said, “since I’ve let you see my fire break through the crust. I didn’t intend to let it show again, for I know your heart is tender. I don’t blame you for feeling that a daughter owes much to a widowed father. I’d be the last to break up a family. I haven’t any right to blame you. Don’t worry about me, ever. But I can’t seem to forget, and while I keep on loving you I am having an awfully good time all by myself doing so.” With frank impulsiveness the woman came close to the fence and patted his big hand that clutched the iron paling. But this frankness in her action, her demeanour, and in the free and honest gaze she gave him, did not console him. “Still you’re ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ Sylvena,” he said, half whimsically, half bitterly. The old man had returned part way down the broad lawn, and was yelping “Daughter!” in his thin voice with increasing impatience. She smiled at the Squire as though the jest of his last words were one well understood between them. “No, only an old maid, Phineas,” she replied, softly. “Sometimes I think that old maids are like poets--born, not made.” “But you’ve let ’em make _you_ one,” he retorted. “It isn’t often I speak of it, Sylvena. You know that. It has been enough for me to walk the same streets with you and have a smile and a word of friendliness---it’s enough most of the time. But my heart has been stirred to-day, and all the old feelings are on top. You have let that stingy old man----” he shook his fist at the Judge, who returned this salute with great spirit, “rob you of the best that a woman ought to have--and that’s a home and a good husband. Oh, I am not speaking of myself!” he cried, his colour coming and a sort of boyish embarrassment overwhelming him. “I don’t know how to say such things very well, but I didn’t mean myself. I never could wake ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ But if the prince himself had come along your father would have driven him away so that he could continue to monopolise your loyalty and devotion. The only reason he wants you to marry King Bradish is because he knows that Bradish will sit outside like a pup and wait until he opens the door.” The Squire was thoroughly angry. The spectacle of the old man hobbling down the lawn and calling at them as though they were offending children exasperated him. “Forgive me, Sylvena,” he choked, breaking in upon her pained and somewhat indignant protest. “But, being a Look, I am pretty much human. You can’t stop me from loving you. God knows I can’t stop myself. I’d like to be able to put out my hand and say to you ‘Sister!’ and look at you as you look at me, but I can’t do it!”