“Please, Sumatra,” she entreated; “we simply can’t be late. I’ll give you my white-ribbed Spanish stockings.” The other serenely answered, “The feet would be too big.” He had never noticed her feet, and to his considerable surprise they were smaller, narrower than Annice’s. “You are a lumpish, impossible child,” the elder said acrimoniously. “Why I begged mother to let you start the cotillons I can’t imagine. And when we get there you are not to hang about me.” “I won’t; you’re not seaworthy. You are cut away too much through the middle; you would go over in a good blow.” Epes incautiously laughed. “Be still,” Annice directed him; “she must not be encouraged in such conduct.” “Well,” he said pacifically, “you wouldn’t, Trinidad.” He often substituted the West India island for that from which she was named, reminding her of his matrimonial prediction. “Yes, sampan,” Annice echoed him. “Will you or will you not get dressed?” “I will, when I have twelve minutes. It doesn’t, you know, take me three hours.” Nevertheless, she rose. “You haven’t been specially nice to me, have you?” she said slowly, carefully avoiding Epes Calef. “You made pretty clear all you thought. I don’t believe I could be like that.” Suddenly she gazed full at Epes. “It might be your father in you,” she concluded; “if I were you I shouldn’t encourage that--for Annice’s sake. It would be so hard on her.” “Thank you, but I can take care of myself,” Annice assured her brightly; “and it would be nicer to omit the personal history.” “All I say is wrong!” Sumatra declared. “All,” Epes echoed her. “I must be a sampan.” “Must.” “Square bowed, and only fit for rivers.” “For rivers.” “But even that is better than a desk,” she reminded him. She was beside the door, and paused with a hand upon the frame, looking over her shoulder. “What Annice told you was true,” she reiterated. “I had a little picture hidden in a drawer, which I am now going up to tear into bits.” When she had gone Annice turned to him in a conciliatory manner. “There is something I meant to tell you at once, this afternoon, but it slipped from my mind. I hope you won’t be angry and I can’t imagine how it happened. But the whole thing, of course, is exaggerated; it must be all nonsense at bottom. Still I am sorrier than words can say. Epes, somehow I’ve lost the token.” He gazed, startled at her, with a stirring of the old Calef superstition within him. However, he concealed it. “That is too bad. We think it’s rather valuable, you know. Perhaps it will turn up; there are so many places you might have left it.” No, she replied; she knew how they felt about it, and she had left it, she was certain, in the lacquer box on her dressing-case. It was very mysterious and uncertain. “Now,” she said with a smile, “you won’t have to marry me. The spell, the charm is broken.”