"Give up the housekeeping!" he echoed a little impatiently; "I don't see the necessity for that. Clarissa"--oh, how sweet it was to him to pronounce her name, and with that delicious sense of proprietorship!--"Clarissa is too young to care much for that sort of thing--dealing out groceries, and keeping account-books, as you do. Very meritorious, I am sure, my dear, and no doubt useful. No, I don't suppose you'll be interfered with, Sophy. In all essentials you will still be mistress. If Clarissa is queen, you will be prime minister; and you know it is the minister who really pulls the strings. And I do hope that in time you two will get to love each other." "I shall endeavour to do my duty, papa," Miss Granger answered primly. "We cannot command our feelings." It was some feeble relief to her to learn that her grocery-books, her day-books by double-entry, and all those other commercial volumes dear to her heart, were not to be taken away from her; that she was still to retain the petty powers she had held as the sole daughter of Daniel Granger's house and heart. But to resign her place at the head of her father's table, to see Clarissa courted and caressed, to find faltering allegiance perhaps even among her model poor--all these things would be very bitter, and in her heart Sophia Granger was angry with her father for a line of conduct which she considered the last stage of folly. She loved him, after her own precise well-regulated fashion--loved him as well as a creature so self-conscious could be expected to love; but she could not easily forgive him for an act which seemed, in some sort, a fraud upon herself. She had been brought up to believe herself his sole heiress, to look upon his second marriage as an utter impossibility. How often had she heard him ridicule the notion when it was suggested to him by some jocose acquaintance! and it did seem a very hard thing that she should be pushed all at once from this lofty stand-point, and levelled to the very dust. There would be a new family, of course; a brood of sons and daughters to divide her heritage. Hannah Warman had suggested as much when discussing the probability of the marriage, with that friendly candour, and disposition to look at the darker side of the picture, which are apt to distinguish confidantes of her class. "I am sure, papa," Miss Granger whimpered by-and-by, not quite able to refrain from some expression of ill-temper, "I have scarcely had a pleasant evening since you have known the Lovels. You are always there, and it is very dull to be alone every night." "It has been your own fault in some measure, Sophy. You might have had Clarissa here, if you'd chosen to cultivate her friendship." "Our inclinations are beyond our control, papa. Nothing but your express commands, and a sense of duty, would induce me to select Miss Lovel for a companion. There is no sympathy between us."