ich
Mildred's extravagance, and doubtless my own inclination, have caused
me to accumulate. Whatever happens Sibyl will be all right; and yet--I
don't care for wealth, but Mildred does, and the child will be better
for money. Money presents a shield between a sensitive heart like
Sibyl's and the world. Yes, I am tempted. Sibyl tempts me."

He thrust the letter into a drawer, locked the drawer, put the key in
his pocket, and ran up to Sibyl's nursery. She was asleep, and there
was no one else in the room. The blinds were down at the windows, and
the nursery, pretty, dainty, sweet, and fresh, was in shadow.

Ogilvie stepped softly across the room, and drew up the blind. The
moonlight now came in, and shed a silver bar of light across the
child's bed. Sibyl lay with her golden hair half covering the pillow,
her hands and arms flung outside the bedclothes.

"Good-night, little darling," said her father. He bent over her, and
pressed a light kiss upon her cheek. Feather touch as it was, it
aroused the child. She opened her big blue eyes.

"Oh, father, is that you?" she cried in a voice of rapture.

"Yes, it is I. I came to wish you good-night."

"You are good, you never forget," said Sibyl. She clasped her arms
round his neck. "I went to bed without saying my prayers. May I say
them now to you?"

"Not for worlds," it was the man's first impulse to remark, but he
checked himself. "Of course, dear," he said.

Sibyl raised herself to a kneeling posture. She clasped her soft arms
round her father's neck.

"Pray God forgive me for being naughty to-day," she began, "and pray
God make me better to-morrow, 'cos it will please my darlingest father
and mother; and I thank you, God, so much for making them good, very
good, and without sin. Pray God forgive Sibyl, and try to make her
better.

"Now, father, you're pleased," continued the little girl. "It was very
hard to say that, because really, truly, I don't want to be better,
but I'll try hard if it pleases you."

"Yes, Sibyl, try hard," said her father, "try very hard to be good.
Don't let goodness go. Grasp it tight with both hands and never let it
go. So may God indeed help you." Ogilvie said these words in a
strained voice. Then he covered her up in bed, drew down the blinds,
and left her.

"He's fretted; it's just 'cos the world is so wicked, and 'cos I'm not
as good as I ought to be," thought the child. A moment later she had
fallen asleep with a smile on her fa