papa in the driest room and see what the cellar is like, and perhaps we may find some boy about who will cut away some of those branches and let a little sunlight in on this window that I see mamma has marked for her own. A little shaking and shivering won't matter so much for us, Sybil. We are young and can stand it, but papa is not strong and fever would simply eat him up, poor dear!"

Sybil bent suddenly, and, kissing her sister's cheek: "You're a patient little soul, Dorrie," she said, "but I tell you I shall go mad presently over this never-ending mending and turning and dyeing, this wearing of each other's clothes, this mad effort to keep up appearances! Why can't we do something as other girls do—who help themselves?"

"Ah, but mamma!" interposed Dorothy. "She would never consent. We are ladies, you know, dear, and——"

"Idiots!" savagely completed Sybil, "who don't know how to do one single thing well. I can paint—a little; you can play—a little. We both can sing—a little, and we both can dance perfectly!"

And she flung her arm about Dorothy's slim waist and together they went waltzing out into the old hall, their light, swaying figures skimming swallow-like over the sunken porch and out into the sunshine, where presently a great brown root tripped them up, and they fell, a laughing heap, on the moss. Next instant two excited voices were crying: "Violets! Oh, real violets!" And with fingers trembling with haste, and eyes wide with delight, they gathered the timid little hooded darlings of the spring, forgetting their poverty, their makeshifts, and their anxieties, as God meant young things should forget at times, and only remembering that they were sisters, who loved each other and had found out there under the sky their first bed of sweet wild violets.

CHAPTER II

A POWERFUL NEIGHBOR

It was near the end of the week. Already Woodsedge seemed to have wakened, drawn a long breath, and assumed that pleasant expression so earnestly sought for by generations of photographers. In fact, the old house had taken on a homelike look, and both the girls had been sewing at break-needle speed trying to finish some muslin curtains that they wished to have put up in their own room before Sunday, as those windows were in full view of Broadway drivers, and they felt that propriety demanded muslin curtains as well as shades. And this, according to Lena, was "Friday alretty," so together they were driving Dick, the canary, nearly wild by singing against him over their work, when John Lawton, wearing an ancient alpaca coat and a mournful and repentant straw hat, appeared upon the porch clasping a left finger in a very bloody right hand; remarking, with his usual moderation of speech: "I think I have got a cut."

"Do you, indeed?" Sybil snapped, as she rushed for an old handkerchief. "I suppose a severed artery would about convince you of the fact! Bring me a bit of thread, Dorrie! Oh, you white-faced goose, that screech of yours has brought mamma!" And mamma was followed by the ever-faithful Lena. And so it happened that Mr. Lawton's injured finger drew to his service four devoted women. Sybil, first pouring some fair water over the cut, proceeded to bandage it with a bit of old linen. Dorothy, keeping her face averted, held out a spool of white silk. Lena, with a trail of rejected cobweb in one hand and an enormous pair of shears in the other, waited to cut the thread off; while Mrs. Lawton, with eye-glasses on nose, superintended Sybil's efforts and sagely advised her that if she wound the bandage too tight it would stop circulation, and if it were too loose it would come off, and——

"And if I should get it just right, what would happen, mamma?" meekly questioned the girl.

"Why—why—er," confusedly stammered Mrs. Lawton, "why—really I——"

"Your mother can't conceive the idea of anything being just right, this side of our heavenly home, my dear," gravely remarked her husband, which was unexpected, not to say ungrateful.

"John!" sternly spoke the lady, "instead of jeering at the wife of your bosom in the presence of your children——"

"There, mamma washes her hands of us, you see, Dorrie," interposed Sybil; but Mrs. Lawton went straight on:

"—you would do well, first, to remember that though I have lost my illusions, I have not neglected my religious duties, and next to explain what you were about to get a cut shaped like that?"

"O observant mamma!" laughed Sybil, while Lena remarked, with unconscious impertinence: "I tink dot cut make himself mit a sickle alretty. Ain't dot so, my Herr Mister?"

"Oh, papa," cried both girls, "you were never trying to cut the grass yourself, were you?"

"Why not?" asked the old gentleman. "It needs it badly, and it will be a bit of change saved if I can do it myself."

"Nein! nein!" cried Lena, indignantly. "I make mit de sickles myself by and bye, ven I got of de times. I vork youst so well as any mans on de grass! Dot is not for you, my Herr Mister; dot is for me. Und you don't see alretty yet vat I got in dose gartens. You come with me, Miss Ladies—I show!" and all one broad, flat laugh, she led Sybil and Dorothy to the rear of the house, and proudly pointed to a freshly dug garden bed.

"Why!" cried they, "who did it?" and "Oh, Lena, did you make a bargain beforehand?" asked the sadly experienced young Dorothy.

But Lena laughed and laughed and pounded her knee so vigorously that the girls fairly winced at sight of the blows. Then joyously, if slangily, she explained: "Dot mash-man, he do dot diggins—youst for me. Und he say he do more to-morrow. Und Sunday I rake 'em fine, dot bed, und put in der seeds, und behold, der vill be a garten one of dose days. Vat you tink, eh?"

Both the girls had very bright eyes. They looked at each other. Sybil started to unfasten the pretty belt she wore, but Dorothy shook her head warningly, then put her hand up and drew from her hair a little side-comb.

"Wait!" cried Sybil, and she took out one of hers, and with much laughter saw Lena proudly place the combs in her own flaxen locks; and as the maid returned to her endless work, Sybil exclaimed: "What a nature! what a good-hearted creature!"

"And yet," laughed Dorothy, "how mercenary in her treatment of her 'mash-man'! Oh, Sybil, where do you suppose she got that word? Poor thing, I did not dare let you give her the belt, dear, because we have but the one between us, just now. But here is the other comb—yes, take it! Your hair is heavier than mine. Oh, Sybil, darling girl, don't, oh, don't cry! Things will come right, somehow—only wait!"

"I can't! I—I won't!" cried Sybil. "The shame, the mortification of accepting help from that poor, overworked little German girl, who coquets with a laborer for our benefit—oh, it sickens one! Dorrie, I'm going to tell papa, right out, straight and plain, that I'm going on the stage! There—I can at least earn my own living, if I can't win fame. I know he will be terribly upset, but I'll say—that——"

"Suppose," gently suggested the practical Dorothy, "that we finish the curtains, Sybil dear, and you can tell me all about what you intend saying to papa while we sew!"

When, twenty-five years ago, "all in the merry month of May," John Lawton had married Letitia Bassett, there had not been wanting at the wedding-feast one or two of those distant relatives who generally make such unwelcome guests; since not near enough to be known and loved, yet not distant enough to be ignored, they are very apt to amuse themselves by keeping tab on the bride's