od American cheque in her bank. She is
improving the occasion of her American visit by an extended hunt for
old silver and brasses and china for a great country house on the
Hudson--its many-millioned mistress will pay well for her "imported"
treasures!

Truly is Susan a lesson to us, and wide would be her
great-grandmother's eyes could she see Susan disposing of her girlish
samplers and draping her camel's-hair shawl behind a Hawthorne jar.
And I am bound to admit that Susan is not marrying, though her mother
was struggling with two delicate children at her age. No, Susan has
no need to "marry to get away from home." As fast as this
accomplished young woman establishes herself in a charming house, some
envious person buys it of her, and she moves serenely to a new one, a
contented, self-respecting Arab with a bank account.

Ah, well, perhaps it will be, as her mother triumphantly declares, all
the more honour to the man who gets her, after all! We oldsters must
not be stubborn, nowadays.

My mother, like old Mrs. Upgrove, is living still; well and happy,
both of them, thank God, and as proud of their sons as if either had
ever done anything to deserve it. Neither of them has much to say of
Margarita, I have noticed, though both fondle her children, a little
absently, perhaps, and feign to wonder what it is we see in Peggy that
blinds us to the excellencies of the others--stouter children and more
respectful, my dear!

And Death, that spares them both, and old Madam Bradley, too
(eighty-eight now and half paralysed for nearly twenty years!), what
had we done that he should take away one whom we and the world--her
world--could so ill spare? Does _Someone_, indeed, know why, my
sweetheart Peggy? I try to think so, but it is hard to see.

Nine years ago Harriet put Peggy into her mother's arms and praised
the little thing and kissed them both, and then told Roger that she
must leave them, for she felt ill and would not risk the
responsibility of further nursing. She would send a good nurse
straight from New York, she said, and Roger himself took her there,
leaving the doctor with Margarita, as soon as he dared. He brought
back the other nurse, wired me to look after Harriet, and left her
comfortable in the little apartment of a good friend of hers, with a
promise of a speedy return. He never saw her alive again.

Dr. McGee, even then a famous physician and devotedly attached to her,
worked day and night over her, b