The next morning Annie Forest opened her eyes with that strange feeling of indifference and want of vivacity which come so seldom to youth. She saw the sun shining through the closed blinds; she heard the birds twittering and singing in the large elm-tree which nearly touched the windows; she knew well how the world looked at this moment, for often and often in her old light-hearted days she had risen before the maid came to call her, and, kneeling by the deep window-ledge, had looked out at the bright, fresh, sparkling day. A new day, with all its hours before it, its light vivid but not too glaring, its dress all manner of tender shades and harmonious colorings! Annie had a poetical nature, and she gloried in these glimpses which she got all by herself of the fresh, glad world.