I couldn’t help exclaiming, “Well, of all things!”

“That’s not the queerest part,” Ada went on.  “She told me as confidently as could be that he is still in love with her.”

“Ada,” said I, “Elizabeth Talbert must be daft!  Does she think that all the men in the world are in love with her—­at her age?  First Mrs. Temple making such a rumpus, and now this—­”

“At first I thought just as you do,” Ada said, helplessly.  “Of course there can’t be anything in it—­and yet—­I’m sure I don’t understand the situation at all.  You know Harry left quite unexpectedly—­soon after Elizabeth came; he didn’t write for a week—­and then to her, and Peggy’s only had one short note from him—­”

I can see through a hole in a millstone as well as any one, and a light dawned on me.

“You can depend upon it, Ada,” I said, “Aunt Elizabeth has been making trouble!  I don’t know what she’s been up to, but she’s been up to something!  I wondered why she had been having such a contented look lately—­and now I know.”

“Oh, mother, I can’t believe that!” Ada protested.  “I thought Elizabeth was a little vain and silly, and, though everything is so incomprehensible, I don’t believe for a moment that Aunt Elizabeth would do anything to hurt Peggy.”

My Ada is a truly good woman—­so good that it is almost impossible for her to believe ill of any one, and she was profoundly shocked at what I suggested.

“I don’t think in the beginning Elizabeth intended to hurt Peggy,” I answered her, gently, “but when you’ve lived as long in the world as I have you’ll realize to what lengths a woman will go to show the world she’s still young.  Just look at it for yourself.  Everything was going smoothly until Elizabeth came.  Now it’s not.  Elizabeth has told you she’s had goings-on with Harry Goward.  I don’t see, Ada, how you can be so blind as not to be willing to look the truth in the face.  If it’s not Elizabeth’s fault, whose is it?  I don’t suppose you believe Henry Goward’s dying for love of Aunt Elizabeth when he can look at Peggy!  Oh, I’d like to hear his side of the story!  For you may be sure that there is one!”

“Mother,” said Ada, “if I believed Elizabeth had done anything to mar that child’s happiness—­”

She stopped for fear, I suppose, of what she might be led to say.  “We mustn’t judge before we know,” she finished.  But I knew by the look on her face that, if Aunt Elizabeth has made trouble, Ada will never forgive her.

“What does Cyrus say to all this?” I asked, by way of diversion.

“Oh, I haven’t told Cyrus anything about it.  I didn’t intend to tell any one—­about Aunt Elizabeth’s part in it.  I think Cyrus is a little uneasy himself, but he’s been so busy lately—­”