“I saw them! I was among them! I must have been shouting too, but I was not aware of it at the time. Have you heard from any one what terms we have got? Will you believe that I have not thought of ‘terms’ until this moment?” “Nor have I, judge. I have heard no one ask about the terms. No one cares about terms just yet. We have _peace_! That is enough!” CHAPTER TEN _The Star of Peace_ The one idea of New York, now that peace was assured, was renovation and reconstruction. Every one was busy. The war was a dead issue, commerce was a living one. The passion for trading and building took the place of the military passion, and the happy sounds of labour and traffic superseded those of the cannon and the drum. The preservation of the city had been for four years the dominant care of its inhabitants; now that it was safe they turned with a vehement spirit of industry to building up trade and commerce in every direction. It was under these auspices a joyful city. There was less dancing and dining, but there was a growing prosperity and content, for all had some business or handicraft to pursue, and all were full of hope and energy. And the spirit of reconstruction was as potent in women as in men, though their arena for its exercise was more restricted. Mrs. Bloommaert began at once to talk of new carpets and curtains, and of a complete refurnishing of the principal rooms of the house. And as the spring came on every dwelling on the Bowling Green caught this fever of improvement; and first one and then another displayed to passers-by their fresh paint and their new lace draperies. It was a sign of some consequence, for it typified the strength of that hope and energy which embraced domestic comforts and elegancies as part and parcel of their civic prosperity. In all the changes made in the Bloommaert house Sappha felt, or at least affected to feel, a sufficient interest. She could not shadow her mother’s busy pleasure by any evident want of sympathy, yet it was sometimes difficult to forget sufficiently her offended lover. Her soul--that strange, fluttering mystery--had lost its life’s dominant, the other soul to which it had learned to refer every thought and desire; and there was now silence or discord where once there had been sweetest melody. Her suffering, however, was no longer a storm, it was rather a still, hopeless rain, an unimpassioned grief that seldom found the natural outlet of tears. But these constant fires of repression and self-immolation were sacramental as well as sacrificial. They were strong with absolution also; and thus made calm and sure by much sorrow and by one love, she gradually came out of trouble with a spirit tempered as by fire; having lost nothing in the furnace but the dross of her nobler qualities.