All morning Sappha sat in a kind of listless grief. She was in a mesh of circumstances against whose evil influence she was powerless. Nothing could avail. The morning was damp and cold and full of melancholy, the house strangely still; she could not sew, she could not read, she could only suffer. And at eighteen years of age suffering is so acute, it seems to youth’s dreams of happiness such a wrong; and the reasonable indifference of age has, to its impatience, the very spirit of cruelty. About noon Mrs. Bloommaert came into the room. She had a letter in her hand, and there was a singular expression of discomposure both on her countenance and in the fretful way in which she held the missive in her outstretched hand. “Sappha,” she said, “here comes news indeed! Your grandmother has written to tell us that last night Achille St. Ange asked Annette to marry him. And of course Annette accepted the offer,” commented Annette’s aunt. “Your grandmother seems delighted with the match.” “They will suit each other very well, mother. I am sure they will be happy. I must go and congratulate Annette.” “Not to-day. They both went, early this morning, with the news, to grandfather De Vries, and of course that is a day’s visit.” “As he is the guardian of her estate, Annette would have to ask him for money; for she will now want a great deal of it. I am glad she is going to marry Achille; she has loved him ever since they met.” “Annette loves Annette first and best of all. But she has plenty of sense, and she knows that a girl of twenty-one has no chances to throw away.” “Annette looks about seventeen, mother, and she has more lovers than I ever had.” “That is because you allowed every one to see your preference for Leonard Murray. Besides, what you say is not so. In spite of your partiality, no girl in New York has more admirers than Sapphira Bloommaert.” “I prefer Leonard to all I ever had, or might have had.” “Yes. I know. Very foolish, too! Your father does not like him; he will never give a willing consent to your marriage with him--and girls ought to marry before they are Annette’s age. In fact, I have thought her a little old-maidish for a year past.” “Oh, mother! Now you are joking----” “Too affected--too full of pouts, and shrugs and pirouettes; things very pretty when a girl is fifteen or sixteen, but quite old-maidish airs at twenty-one.” “Mother, Annette never looked more than seventeen, and she is not quite twenty-one.” “I think she looks every day of her age. She is more than two years older than you; and two years, when a girl is in her teens, is a great deal. Well, well, I thought you would have been married first.” “If father and you were willing, I could be married at once. Leonard would be glad; but----” “Oh, yes! we all know how soon ‘but’ comes; _but_, you want your own way; _but_, father wants his way; _but_----” “Mother wants her way also.”