be regretted; it showed a sad change
in Dorothy's heart. But yesterday the memory of her deceit would have
filled her with grief. To-night she laughed at it. Ah, Sir George!
Pitiable old man! While your daughter laughs, you sigh and groan and moan,
and your heart aches with pain and impotent rage. Even drink fails to
bring comfort to you. I say impotent rage, because Dorothy is out of your
reach, and as surely as the sun rises in the east she is lost to you
forever. The years of protection and tender love which you have given to
her go for nothing. Now comes the son of your mortal enemy, and you are
but an obstruction in her path. Your existence is forgotten while she
revels in the memory of his words, his embraces, and his lips. She laughs
while you suffer, in obedience to the fate that Heaven has decreed for
those who bring children into this world.

Who is to blame for the pitiable mite which children give in return for a
parent's flood of love? I do not know, but of this I am sure: if parents
would cease to feel that they own their children in common with their
horses, their estates, and their cattle; if they would not, as many do in
varying degrees, treat their children as their property, the return of
love would be far more adequate than it is.

Dorothy stood before her mirror plaiting her hair. Her head was turned
backward a little to one side that she might more easily reach the great
red golden skein. In that entrancing attitude the reflection of the nether
lip of which John had spoken so fondly came distinctly to Dorothy's
notice. She paused in the braiding of her hair and held her face close to
the mirror that she might inspect the lip, whose beauty John had so
ardently admired. She turned her face from one side to the other that she
might view it from all points, and then she thrust it forward with a
pouting movement that would have set the soul of a mummy pulsing if he had
ever been a man. She stood for a moment in contemplation of the full red
lip, and then resting her hands upon the top of the mirror table leaned
forward and kissed its reflected image.

Again forgetfulness fell upon her and her thoughts grew into words.

"He was surely right concerning my lower lip," she said, speaking to
herself. Then without the least apparent relevance, "He had been smoking."
Again her words broke her revery, and she took up the unfinished braid of
hair. When she did so, she caught a glimpse of her arm which was as