“Well,” I said, “I think Cyrus ought to be told!  And you’re the one to do it.  Don’t let’s judge, to be sure, before we know everything, but I think Cyrus ought to know the mischief his sister is making!  Elizabeth simply makes a convenience of this house.  It’s her basis of departure to pack her trunk from, that’s all your home means to her.  She’s never lifted a finger to be useful beyond rearranging the furniture in a different way from what you’d arranged it.  She acts exactly as if she were a young lady boarder.  She’s nothing whatever to do in this world except make trouble for others.  I think Cyrus should know, and then if he prefers his sister’s convenience to his wife’s happiness, well and good!” It’s not often I speak out, but now and then things happen which I can’t very well keep silent about.  It did me good to ease my mind about Elizabeth Talbert for once.

Ada only said, “Elizabeth and I have always been such good friends, and she’s so fond of Peggy.”

Ada doesn’t realize that with some women vanity is stronger than loyalty.  She kissed me.  “It’s done me good to talk to you, mother,” she said, “because now it doesn’t seem, when I put it outside myself, that there’s very much of anything to worry about.”

Ada has always been like that—­she seems to get rid of her troubles just by telling them.  Now she had passed her riddle on to me, and I could not keep Peggy and her affairs from my mind.  I tried to tell myself that it would be better for every one to find out now than later if Henry Goward was not worthy to be Peggy’s husband.  But, oh, for all their sakes, how I hoped this cloud, whatever it was, would blow over!  I have a very good constitution and I know how to take care of it, but when several more days passed without Peggy’s hearing from Henry again I gave way, but I tried to keep up on Ada’s account.  I began to see how much this young man’s honor and faithfulness meant to Peggy, and I took long excursions back into the past to remember how I felt at her age.  Mail-time was the difficult time for all three of us.  Before the postman came Peggy would brighten up; not that she was drooping at any time, only I knew how tensely she waited, because Ada and I waited with her.  When the man came, and again no letters, Peggy held up her head bravely as could be, but I could see, all the same, how the light had gone out.  The worst of it was, everybody knew about it.  It would have been twice as easy for the child if she could have borne it alone, but Elizabeth Talbert watched the mail like a cat, and even manoeuvred to try and get the letters before Peggy, while Alice went around with her nose in the air, and I heard Maria saying to Ada: 

“What’s all this about Harry Goward’s not writing?”