ied Sylvia, blushing, but loving this
poetic talk all the same. "Do you want to put me in a glass case when we
marry? If you do, I sha'n't become Mrs. Beecot. I want to see the world
and to enjoy myself."

"Then other men will admire you and I shall grow jealous."

"Can you be jealous--Paul?"

"Horribly! You don't know half my bad qualities. I am poor and needy,
and ambitious and jealous, and--"

"There--there. I won't hear you run yourself down. You are the best boy
in the world."

"Poor world, if I am that," he laughed, and squeezed the little hand.
"Oh, my love, do you really think of me?"

"Always! Always! You know I do. Why, ever since I saw you enter the shop
six months ago I have always loved you. I told Debby, and Debby said
that I could."

"Supposing Debby had said that you couldn't."

"Oh, she would never have said that. Why, Paul, she saw you."

The young man laughed and colored. "Do I carry my character in my face?"
he asked. "Sylvia, don't think too well of me."

"That is impossible," she declared. "You are my fairy prince."

"Well, I certainly have found an enchanted princess sleeping in a
jealously-guarded castle. What would your father say did he know?"

Sylvia looked startled. "I am afraid of my father," she replied,
indirectly. "Yes--he is so strange. Sometimes he seems to love me, and
at other times to hate me. We have nothing in common. I love books and
art, and gaiety and dresses. But father only cares for jewels. He has a
lot down in the cellar. I have never seen them, you know," added Sylvia,
looking at her lover, "nor have Deborah or Bart. But they are there.
Bart and Deborah say so."

"Has your father ever said so?"

"No. He won't speak of his business in the cellar. When the shop is
closed at seven he sends Bart away home and locks Deborah and I in the
house. That is," she explained anxiously, lest Paul should think her
father a tyrant, "he locks the door which leads to the shop. We can walk
over all the house. But there we stop till next morning, when father
unlocks the door at seven and Bart takes down the shutters. We have
lived like that for years. On Sunday evenings, however, father does not
go to the cellar, but takes me to church. He has supper with me
upstairs, and then locks the door at ten."

"But he sleeps upstairs?"

"No. He sleeps in the cellar."

"Impossible. There is no accommodation for sleeping there."

Sylvia explained. "There is another cellar--a smalle