on two of those
white-and-gold thrones, and she summoned an indignation with the
absurdity in refusing him. She rose and said that she must go; that
she must be going; that it was quite time for her to go; and she would
not let him follow her to the elevator, as he made some offer of
doing, but left him standing among his palatial furniture like a
prince in exile.

By the time she reached home she had been able to decide that she must
tell her mother at once. Her mother received the fact of Peter's
proposal with such transport that she did not realize the fact of
Charlotte's refusal. When this was connoted to her she could scarcely
keep her temper within the bounds of maternal tenderness. She said
she would have nothing more to do with such a girl; that there was but
one such pearl as Peter in the universe, and for Charlotte to throw
him away like that! Was it because she could not decide? Well, it
appeared that she could decide wrong quickly enough when it came to
the point. Would she leave it now to her mother?

That Charlotte would not do, but what she did do was to write a letter
to Peter taking him back as much as rested with her; but delaying so
long in posting it, when it was written, that it reached him among the
letters sent on board and supplementarily delivered by his room
steward after all the others when the ship had sailed. The best Peter
could do in response was a jubilant Marconigram of unequaled cost and
comprehensiveness.

His mother had meant to return in the fall, after her custom, to find
out whether she wished to spend the winter in New York or not. Before
the date for her sailing she fell sick, and Peter came sadly home
alone in the spring. Mrs. Bream's death brought Mrs. Forsyth a vain
regret; she was sorry now that she had seen so little of Mrs. Bream;
Peter's affection for her was beautiful and spoke worlds for both of
them; and they, the Forsyths, must do what they could to comfort him.

Charlotte felt the pathos of his case peculiarly when she went to make
provision for goods selected for the summer from the old ancestral
room, and found him forlorn among his white-and-gold furniture next
door. He complained that he had no association with it except the
touching fact of his mother's helplessness with it, which he had now
inherited. The contents of the trunks were even less intimately of his
experience; he had performed a filial duty in listing their contents,
which long antedated him, a