Sing sweet mocking birds! Shine genial sun! Bloom fairest flowers of Sunny Florida! Bliss be thine, loved Lucy! Dream not of the ocean’s angry roar! The tempest’s cruel blast! VII. “I really can hardly realize, grandfather, that I have been married one year and that today is the anniversary of my wedding,” exclaimed Mrs. Walter Burton to her grandfather, as lingering over a late breakfast, they chatted in a desultory manner on many subjects. The breakfast-room of the Dunlap mansion was one of the prettiest apartments in the house; bright and airy, with great windows reaching from ceiling to floor, which flooded the place with sunshine and cheerfulness this brilliant snowy New England morning. Surely it had been difficult to find anything prettier than the young matron who presided over the sparkling service with the grace of the school-girl still visible notwithstanding the recently assumed dignity of wife. Lucy Burton’s face and form possessed that rare quality of seeming always displayed to best advantage in the last costume she wore. Nothing could be more becoming than the lace-trimmed breakfast gown of a clinging silky, pink fabric worn by her this morning. The tete-a-tete between grandfather and granddaughter each morning over the breakfast-table was an established and, to both, a cherished custom that had grown up since Lucy’s marriage. Mr. James Dunlap carried his seventy-three years as lightly as many men of less rugged constitutions carry fifty. His was a fresh, healthy, kindly old face, the white hair resting like the snow on some Alpine peak served but to heighten the charm of those goodly features below. “A year to young people means very little, I judge, daughter, but we old folk regard it differently. You have been away from me during the last year so much that old man as I am, the time has dragged,” the grandfather replied laying aside his morning paper and adjusting his glasses that he might see better the pretty face across the table. “Now, that I look at you, my dear, apparently you have not aged to any alarming extent since you have become a matron,” jocosely added the old gentleman, his eyes beaming lovingly on his granddaughter. “I may not show it, still I have my troubles.” Lucy’s attempt to wrinkle her smooth brow and draw down the corners of her sweet mouth while she tried to muster up a sigh was so ridiculous that her companion began to laugh. “Don’t laugh at me, grandfather; it’s unkind,” cried Lucy, with the childish manner that still crept out when alone with him who had been both father and mother to her. “Very well, deary, I shall not laugh. Tell me of those dire troubles that afflict you,” rejoined her still smiling grandfather. “Well! now there is Walter, obliged to run away so early to that horrid old office that I never see him at the breakfast-table,” began the young creature with pretty pettishness.