“I know not, grandmother. When that pastry cook flung open our parlour door and cried out ‘_Achille! Achille! Napoleon is in exile! The Bourbons are on the throne of France again!_’ Achille flung himself into the man’s arms, and they kissed each other. Grandmother, they kissed each other, and then went off together as if they were out of their senses.” “But to you also, Achille spoke? Of the dinner he spoke; I know it.” “He said he would return in time for dinner; but he will forget--he was beside himself----” “Come, come, let not Joanna de Vries see that you are vexed at any thing. Too much she will have to say. Here comes Madame Rutgers! Shall we go to them?” Then Annette went to welcome her guests, and, with longer or shorter delays, the company gathered. Every one had something strange to add to the general excitement, but it was only the women that chattered and quarrelled until near two o’clock. Then the judge and Leonard came in together, and were soon followed by the young Verplanks, Commissioner Van Buren and his two sons, and Cornelius Bogart, Annette’s favourite cousin. But Achille at two o’clock had not arrived, and the dinner was ready, and the company waiting--the men very impatiently, for at “high ’Change” they had taken their usual nooning of a piece of raw salt codfish and a glass of punch, and they knew that the ordinary at the Tontine Coffee House, in Wall Street, would have at three o’clock a dinner very much more to their mind, considering the news of the day and the disturbance and the agitation it had caused. Annette, under these conditions, had nothing to offer as attractive. The women, fair and otherwise, were the women of their own family connections; and relations must be taken as found; there is no choice, as in friends. Which of us has not relations that would never be on our list of friends? So there was an uncomfortable hour of waiting, and as Achille came not Madame Bloommaert proposed to serve dinner without his presence. “For one laggard,” she said, “to keep twenty-eight people waiting is not right, Annette. At once, now, the dinner ought to be served.” Annette agreed to this, but it was hard for her to smile, and to keep back tears. However, just as Judge Bloommaert was going to take Achille’s place the laggard entered. And he was in such a radiant mood that he passed over as insignificant his delay. “He was a little late--he had forgotten--but then it was remarkable that he should have remembered at all. Such news! Such glorious news? Oh, it had been a wonderful morning!”