"There are so many of you now," murmured Florence. She was not attracted by the solicitors and traders in whose society and carriages her mother lolled luxuriously, and she resented the matronly airs of her sisters. With Leah, however, she was conscious of a different and more paradoxical provocation. Leah had an incredible air of juvenility. All those unthinkable, innumerable years little Schnapsie had conceived of her eldest sister as an old maid, hopeless, senescent, despite the wonderful belt that had kept her figure dashing; but now that she was married she had become the girlish bride, kittenish, irresistible, while little Schnapsie was the old maid, the sister in peril of being passed by. And indeed she felt herself appallingly ancient, prematurely aged by her long stay at seventeen. "Yes, you are right, Leah," she said pensively, with a touch of malice. "To-morrow I shall be twenty-four." "What?" shrieked Leah. "Yes," Florence said obstinately. "And oh, how glad I shall be!" She raised her arms exultingly and stretched herself, as if shooting up seven years as soon as the pressure of her sisters was removed. "Do you hear, mother?" whispered Leah. "That fool of a Florence is going to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday. Not the slightest consideration for _us_!" "I didn't say I would celebrate it publicly," said Florence. "Besides," she suggested, smiling, "very soon people will forget that I am _not_ the eldest." "Then your folly will recoil on your own head," said Leah. Little Schnapsie gave a devil-may-care shrug--a Ghetto trait that still clung to all the sisters. "Yes," added Mrs. Peyser. "Think what it will be in ten years' time!" "I shall be thirty-four," said Florence imperturbably. Another little smile lit up the dreamy eyes. "Then I _shall_ be the eldest." "Madness!" cried Mrs. Peyser, aloud, forgetting that her daughters' husbands were about. "God forbid I should live to see any girl of mine thirty-four!" "Hush, mother!" said Florence quietly. "I hope you will; indeed, I am sure you will, for I shall _never_ marry. So don't bother to put me on the books--I'm not on the market. Good-night." She sought out poor Daniel, who, awed by the culture and standing of his five sons-in-law, not to speak of the guests, was hanging about the deserted supper-room, smoking cigar after cigar, much to the disgust of the caterer's men, who were waiting to spirit away the box. Having duly kissed her father, little Schnapsie retired to bed to read Browning's love-poems. Her mother had to take a glass of champagne to restore her ruffled nerves to the appropriate ecstasy. V