had on her new white China silk and her hat with the feathers.  She said she was so excited about everything that she couldn’t stop to think about what she put on; she looked terribly dressed up, but she had come all through the village with her waist unfastened in the middle of the back—­she said she couldn’t reach the hooks.  Aunt Elizabeth had gone away that morning for overnight, so nobody could get at her to find out about her actions with Mr. Goward, and the telegram she had sent to him, until the next day, and every one was nearly crazy.  They talked about it for two hours before Maria went home.  Then Peggy had locked herself in her room, and her mother had gone out, and her grandmother was sitting now on the piazza, rocking and sighing, with her eyes shut.  Alice said each person had got dreadfully worked up, not only about Aunt Elizabeth, but about all the ways every other member of the family had hurt that person at some time.  Maria said that Peggy never would take her advice, and Peggy returned that Maria had hurt her more than any one by her attitude toward Harry Goward, that she was so suspicious of him that it had made him act unnaturally from the first—­that nothing had hurt her so much since the time Maria took away Peggy’s doll on purpose when she was a little girl—­the doll she used to sleep with—­and burned it; it was something she had never got over.

Then her mother, who hadn’t been talking very much, said that Peggy didn’t realize the depth of Maria’s affection for her, and what a good sister she had been, and how she had taken care of Peggy the winter that Peggy was ill—­and then she couldn’t help saying that, bad as was this affair about Harry Goward, it wasn’t like the anxiety one felt about a sick child; there were times when she felt that she could bear anything if Charles Edward’s health were only properly looked after.  Of course Lorraine was young and inexperienced, but if she would only use her influence with him—­

Alice broke off suddenly, and said she had to go—­it was just as Dr. Denbigh’s little auto was coming down the street.  She dashed out of the door and bowed to him from the crossing, quite like a young lady, for all her short skirts—­she really did look fetching!  Dr. Denbigh smiled at her, but not the way he used to smile at Peggy.  I really thought he cared for Peggy once, though he’s so much older that nobody else seemed to dream of such a thing.

Of course, after Alice went, I just sat there in the chair all humped up, thinking of her last words.

The family are always harping on “Lorraine’s influence.”  If they wanted their dear Charles Edward made different from the way he is, why on earth didn’t they do it themselves, when they had the chance?  That’s what I want to know!  I know they mean to be nice to me, but they take it for granted that every habit Charles Edward has or hasn’t, and everything he does or doesn’t, is because I didn’t do something that I ought