the old woman clambering back
into bed. She lit her lamp and took up her novel again.

The next morning old Ann Maria Eustace announced her granddaughter's
engagement at the breakfast table. She waited until the meal was in
full swing, then she raised her voice.

"Well, girls," she said, looking first at Harriet, then at Susan, "I
have some good news for you. Our little Annie here is too modest, so
I have to tell you for her."

Harriet Eustace laughed unsuspiciously. "Don't tell us that Annie has
been writing a great anonymous novel like Margaret Edes," she said,
and Susan laughed also. "Whatever news it may be, it is not that,"
she said. "Nobody could suspect Annie of writing a book. I myself was
not so much surprised at Margaret Edes."

To Annie's consternation, her grandmother turned upon her a long,
slow, reading look. She flushed under it and swallowed a spoonful of
cereal hastily. Then her grandmother chuckled under her breath and
her china blue eyes twinkled.

"Annie has done something a deal better than to write a book," said
she, looking away from the girl, and fixing unsparing eyes upon her
daughters. "She has found a nice man to marry her."

Harriet and Susan dropped their spoons and stared at their mother.

"Mother, what are you talking about?" said Harriet sharply. "She has
had no attention."

"Sometimes," drawled the old lady in a way she affected when she
wished to be exasperating, "sometimes, a little attention is so
strong that it counts and sometimes attention is attention when
nobody thinks it is."

"Who is it?" asked Harriet in rather a hard voice. Susan regarded
Annie with a bewildered, yet kindly smile. Poor Susan had never
regarded the honey pots of life as intended for herself, and thus
could feel a kindly interest in their acquisition by others.

"My granddaughter is engaged to be married to Mr. von Rosen," said
the old lady. Then she stirred her coffee assiduously.

Susan rose and kissed Annie. "I hope you will be happy, very happy,"
she said in an awed voice. Harriet rose, to follow her sister's
example but she looked viciously at her mother.

"He is a good ten years older than Annie," she said.

"And a good twenty-five younger than you," said the old lady, and
sipped her coffee delicately. "He is just the right age for Annie."

Harriet kissed Annie, but her lips were cold and Annie wondered. It
never occurred to her then, nor later, to imagine that her Aunt
Harriet might ha