She stopped, and I didn’t need to have her go on.  My father-in-law is one of those big, kind, sensible, good-natured men who, when they do get angry, go clear off the handle, and are so absolutely furious and unreasonable you can’t do anything with them.  He got that way at Peter once—­but it makes me so furious myself when I think of it that I never do.

“And, Lorraine,” Madonna went on, quite simply, “bringing all this home to Aunt Elizabeth and making her pay up for it really has nothing to do with Peggy’s happiness.  It is my child’s happiness that I want, Lorraine.  There may be a misunderstanding of some kind—­misunderstandings are very cruel things sometimes, Lorraine.  I cannot believe that boy doesn’t care for her—­why, he loved her dearly!  It seems to me far the best and most dignified thing to just write to Mr. Goward himself and find out the truth.”

“I think so, too!” said I.  “Oh, Madonna, you’re a Jim Dandy!”

“And so,” she went on, “I want you to ask Charles Edward to write to-night.  I’ll leave the address with you.  As Peggy’s brother, it will be more suitable for him to attend to the matter.”

Charles Edward!  I simply gasped.  The idea of Peter’s writing to Harry Goward to ask him the state of his affections!  If Peter’s mother couldn’t realize how perfectly impossible it was for even me to make Peter do a thing that—­Well—­I was knocked silly.

Dear Madonna is the survival of a period when a woman always expected some man to face any crisis for her.  All I could do was to say, resignedly: 

“I’ll give him the address.”  And when she got up I went to the gate with her.  She was as dear as she could be; I just loved her until she happened to say: 

“When I came in I thought you might be lying down, for I looked up and saw the shades were pulled down in your room, as they are now.”

“Oh,” I said, “I don’t suppose anybody has been back in the room since we got up.”  And I was downright scared, she looked at me so strangely and began to tremble all over.  “What is the matter?” I cried.  “Do come into the house again!” But she only grasped my arm and said, tragically: 

“Lorraine, it isn’t possible that you haven’t made your bed at four o’clock in the afternoon!” And I answered: 

“Oh, I always make it up before I sleep in it.”  And then I knew that I’d said just the wrong thing.  What difference it can make to anybody what time you make your own bed I can’t see!  She tried to make me promise I’d always make it up before ten o’clock in the morning.  Why, I wouldn’t even promise to always feel fond of Peter at ten o’clock in the morning!  I never have anything to do with the family without always feeling on edge afterward.  Why, when she was so sweet and strong about Peggy and Aunt Elizabeth and all the rest of it, why should she get upset about such a trifle?