"You look utterly worn out. Tell me what's the matter. I'm no longer a child. I'm a woman now--strong and well and brave. Let me help you."

"You do help me, baby!" he laughed with an effort at his old-time joyous spirit. "Every time I touch your little hand, you give me new life. Every note from your sweet voice thrills me with new hope. And I dream dreams and build castles and plan for to-morrow as if I were a boy. What more can a woman do? What more did God mean for a beautiful daughter to do for her old father?"

"Well, I want to do more, I want to share your troubles and help you carry your burdens."

"And so you shall, my dear. Some day your voice will thrill thousands as it now thrills my heart. You'll win fame and wealth for your father.

You shall care for him in old age. And his pride and joy shall be to say to those he meets--'the great singer, yes, my daughter, sir--my little baby!'"

Harriet nestled closer.

"But I want to help now. I'm afraid I've been thoughtless and selfish.

You look so miserable to-night. It cuts me to the heart."

"Nonsense, Baby dear," he broke in cheerfully. "I'm not miserable. I've really had a good day. I've spent the whole afternoon superintending the distributing of flowers among the hospitals. And I've discovered a curious thing--you couldn't imagine what it is?"

The doctor paused and laughed in his old playful way.

"What?" she cried.

Harriet clapped her hands with a moment's childish happiness as she had done so often when her father propounded one of his mysterious problems for her solution.

The doctor whispered:

"I've discovered that pinks are feminine and roses masculine."

"How?"

"Because the men in the hospitals all beg for pinks and the women for roses. It's curious. I never hit on the explanation before. Isn't it reasonable?"

"Yes, quite," was the sober answer. "But it doesn't explain the lines of suffering in your dear face to-night--I'm worried."

"But I'm not suffering!" he insisted with a frown. "On the other hand I'm cheerful to-night. I saved a kid's life with a flower. His father used to work for me in the old days. They asked me to come to see him.

There was no hope. He had been given up to die. I gave him a fragrant white pink. His thin feverish fingers grasped it eagerly. In all his life he had never held a flower in his hand before. He pressed it to his lips, his soul thrilled at its sweet odour, and the little tired spirit came staggering back from the mists of Eternity just to see what it meant. He will live. It was the feather's weight that tipped the beam of life the right way. How little it takes sometimes to give life and happiness. And how tragic and pitiful the fact that so many of us can't get that little at the right moment!"

The joy and laughter had slowly faded from his face and voice as he spoke until the last words had unconsciously fallen into accents of despair.

The girl's arms slipped around his neck in a tightening hold and she pressed her cheek against his a moment in silence.

"Papa dear, it's no use trying to deceive me. I've the right to know what is troubling you. I'm not a child. You must tell me."

"Why, it's nothing much, dearie," he answered gently. "I'm worried a little about money. I've a note due at the bank and they've called on me unexpectedly to meet it. But I'll manage somehow. Don't you worry about it. Everything will come out all right. I feel like a millionaire among the people I've seen to-day."

"I'll give up my music, go to work and help you right away."

"Sh!"

The father placed his hand gently over her lips and the tears sprang into his eyes in spite of his effort to keep them back.

"Don't talk sacrilege, my child. Such words are blasphemy. God gave me a man's body for the coarse work of bread-winning. He gave you the supreme gift, a voice that throbs with eloquence, a power that can lift and inspire the world. Only when you are cultivating that gift are you working. Then you are doing the highest and finest thing of which you are capable. I should be a criminal if I permitted you to do less.

Never say such a thing again unless you would make me utterly miserable."

He paused and took her cheeks between his hands.

"Promise me, dear--it's the one wish of my heart, the one thing worth working and struggling for--promise me that you will never stop until the training of your voice is complete, that no matter what happens you will obey me in this. It is my one command. You will obey me?"

There was dignity and compelling power now in the deep tones of his voice.

The girl felt instinctively its authority.

"Yes, Papa, I promise, if it will make you happy."

"It's the only thing I live for. I've never said this to you before, but I say it now and I don't want you ever to forget it. Now run along to bed and never bother your pretty head again about such things. I'll find food and a home for my baby and she shall live her own beautiful life to the last reach of its power. All I ask is that you do your level best with the gift of God."

"I'll try, Papa dear," was the quiet answer as she kissed him again and softly left the room.

Harriet had scarcely reached her room when Adams, the cashier of one of the Allied Banks, who owed the doctor for three months' rent, entered the library with quick nervous tread.

"I've big news, sir," he said excitedly.

The doctor looked up with a half bantering smile.

"You don't mean that you've got the whole of your three months' rent?

If you have, break it to me gently, Adams, or I'll faint."

"Better than three months' rent," the cashier whispered nervously.

"I've a big tip on the stock market."

The older man grunted contemptuously.

"Yes, that's what ails you, I know. You've been getting them for some time. That's why you owe me for your rooms. That's why there's something the matter with your accounts."

"I swear to you, Doctor, my accounts are clean. My expenses have been so big the past year, with the doctor's bills I've had to pay, I simply couldn't live. The price of everything on earth has gone up fifty per cent. except my wages. I've bought a few stocks. I've made a little and lost a little. I've got the chance now I've been waiting for. I've a real piece of information from the big insiders who are going to make the market to-morrow."

The doctor shook his head and looked at the cashier with humourous pity. The man was trembling from excitement he could not control.

"So you've really got it straight, this time?"

"Beyond the shadow of doubt!" he cried excitedly. "I want you to share with me the fortune I'm going to make."

He paused and breathed heavily, his eyes widening into an unnatural stare, as he continued:

"My God, if I only had ten thousand dollars to-morrow I could be worth a hundred thousand before night!"

The doctor leaned forward with deepening interest.

"You really believe such rot?"

"Believe it, man, it's as certain as fate! There can't be any mistake about it. At twelve o'clock the tide will turn and they'll begin to leap upward in the wildest market that's been seen in a generation.

Doctor, you've been so good to me and I can trust you implicitly.