“I know, Gerardus. I must confess to the same temper. When I came downstairs, and found you had gone without your proper breakfast, and that you had neither come upstairs to bid me good-bye, nor yet left any message for me, I was troubled. And I had a headache, and had to go to Sapphira’s room to get her to come to the table, and the sight of her crying over those tiresome rosebuds made me angry; and I said more and worse than you did. I told her she ought to be ashamed to put her father out for any strange man; and that the fuss she was making over Leonard Murray was unmaidenly; and that the young man himself was far too free and demonstrative--oh, you know, Gerardus, what disagreeable things a fretful mother has the liberty to say to her child! And then, as if all this was not enough, Annette came in about eleven o’clock, and I told her Sapphira was not well, but she would go to her. And, of course, the first things she noticed were the white roses and Sapphira’s trouble, and the little minx put two and two together in a moment. What do you think she said, Gerardus?” “Pitied Sapphira, I suppose.” “She clapped her hands and cried out, ‘Oh, you also got roses! White ones! Mine were pink--such lovely pink rosebuds! My colour is pink, you know.’ And Sapphira answered, ‘I thought it was blue,’ but Annette dropped the subject at once and began to rave about Sapphira’s swollen face and red eyes, and offered her a score of remedies--and so on. Sapphira could only suffer. You know she would have died rather than express either curiosity or annoyance. So, then, having given Sapphira the third and cruelest blow, she went tripping away, telling her ‘to sleep, and not to dream of the handsome Leonard.’ I generally go to Sapphira after a visit from Annette, and when I went to the poor child’s room she was sobbing as if her heart would break. She told me what Annette said, and cried the more, because she had been scolded both by you and me, and all for nothing.” “Poor little one!” “Yes, indeed, Gerardus. These young hearts suffer. We have forgotten how little things seemed so great and so hard in our teens; but every heart is a fresh heart, and made that it may suffer, I think.” “I do not believe Annette got a basket of pink roses. I do not like Murray, but I think there are things he would not do. I saw a letter too--at the bottom of the basket. Oh, I do not believe Annette!”