Nearly a week later the post brought Frau Lilly Czepanek a money-order for two hundred and ten marks, from Richard Dehnicke, of the firm of Liebert & Dehnicke, metal-ware craftsmen, "Due for seven landscapes painted on glass, with dried flowers, sold at thirty marks apiece." Thus the foundation of a future career seemed to be laid. CHAPTER V Bright times followed. With part of the sum she had earned, Lilly invested in new materials, and soon more sunsets flared behind woods of dried grass and flowers pasted on glass. As she lay sleepless, through the hot summer nights, from overwork, she made plans of all the great things she would do when her art had conquered the world. She would have a workshop like Herr Dehnicke's, and employ a dozen women-hands with Frau Laue as forewoman. Then she would advertise for her lost father, and move her poor insane mother to an expensive private asylum. She would, of course, provide for Walter too. Now that she had worked herself up into imagining herself his fiancee, it would be her duty, and she cheerfully took the responsibility on her shoulders. He must, however, first make some sign, or how was she to know where he was? She felt sure that one day, when he had no one to turn to, he would think of her, and find some way of communicating with her. Then out of her abundance she would send him money without stint, all that her art poured into her lap. No, not all. She must think first of that great and sacred task which dominated her life with such a gigantic influence. Whether she traced her father or not, his work, his immortal masterpiece, must never be allowed to sink into oblivion. Awaiting its resurrection, the score of "The Song of Songs" still lay slumbering at the bottom of Lilly's locked box, but it slumbered not quite so dreamlessly as in past years. It began to be restive and to exhort, sobbing and humming an accompaniment to the day's work, breaking out in the night and at other times, when one least expected it, into harmonies and melodies. From over the sunlit, cornflower blue hills it came, as if wafted by an evening breeze, "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!" and from the dark interior of the mythical woods echoed snatches of song concerning the lily of the valleys and the rose of Sharon. It almost seemed as if the invisible inhabitants of those illuminated pasteboard cottages were singing, as evidence of the pleasant lives they led; and so one day would all the people of the earth enjoy those treasures of song, of which fate had appointed her guardian.