The father placed his hand gently over her lips and the tears sprang into his eyes in spite of his effort to keep them back. "Don't talk sacrilege, my child. Such words are blasphemy. God gave me a man's body for the coarse work of bread-winning. He gave you the supreme gift, a voice that throbs with eloquence, a power that can lift and inspire the world. Only when you are cultivating that gift are you working. Then you are doing the highest and finest thing of which you are capable. I should be a criminal if I permitted you to do less. Never say such a thing again unless you would make me utterly miserable." He paused and took her cheeks between his hands. "Promise me, dear--it's the one wish of my heart, the one thing worth working and struggling for--promise me that you will never stop until the training of your voice is complete, that no matter what happens you will obey me in this. It is my one command. You will obey me?" There was dignity and compelling power now in the deep tones of his voice. The girl felt instinctively its authority. "Yes, Papa, I promise, if it will make you happy." "It's the only thing I live for. I've never said this to you before, but I say it now and I don't want you ever to forget it. Now run along to bed and never bother your pretty head again about such things. I'll find food and a home for my baby and she shall live her own beautiful life to the last reach of its power. All I ask is that you do your level best with the gift of God." "I'll try, Papa dear," was the quiet answer as she kissed him again and softly left the room. Harriet had scarcely reached her room when Adams, the cashier of one of the Allied Banks, who owed the doctor for three months' rent, entered the library with quick nervous tread. "I've big news, sir," he said excitedly. The doctor looked up with a half bantering smile. "You don't mean that you've got the whole of your three months' rent? If you have, break it to me gently, Adams, or I'll faint." "Better than three months' rent," the cashier whispered nervously. "I've a big tip on the stock market." The older man grunted contemptuously. "Yes, that's what ails you, I know. You've been getting them for some time. That's why you owe me for your rooms. That's why there's something the matter with your accounts." "I swear to you, Doctor, my accounts are clean. My expenses have been so big the past year, with the doctor's bills I've had to pay, I simply couldn't live. The price of everything on earth has gone up fifty per cent. except my wages. I've bought a few stocks. I've made a little and lost a little. I've got the chance now I've been waiting for. I've a real piece of information from the big insiders who are going to make the market to-morrow." The doctor shook his head and looked at the cashier with humourous pity. The man was trembling from excitement he could not control. "So you've really got it straight, this time?"