now
she's disappointed, and then she starts in and tells what she has been
doing, and Maria--Maria always manages to be there when we are--Maria
tells what SHE has been doing, with little side digs at me because I
haven't been pickling or preserving or cleaning. Once, when I first
went there, Maria asked me at dinner what days I had for cleaning. And
I said, as innocently as possible, that I hadn't any; that I perfectly
loathed cleaning, and that we never cleaned at home! Of course it wasn't
true, but we never talk about it, anyway. Peter said he nearly shrieked
with joy to hear me come out like that.

It was almost as bad as the time I wore that sweet little yellow Empire
gown. It's a dear, and Lyman Wilde simply raved over it when he
painted me in it (not that he can really paint, but he has a TOUCH with
everything he does). I noticed that everybody seemed solemn and queer,
but I never dreamed that I was the cause until my mother-in-law came to
me afterward, blushing, and told me that Mr. Talbert never allowed any
of the family to wear Mother Hubbards around the house. MOTHER HUBBARDS!
I could have moaned. Well, when I go around there now I never care what
I have on, and I never pretend to talk at meals; I just sit and try and
make my mind a blank until it's over. You HAVE to make your mind a blank
if you don't want to be driven raving crazy by that dining-room. It has
a hideous black-walnut sideboard, an "oil-painting" of pale, bloated
fruit on one side, and pale, bloated fish on the other, and a strip of
black-and-white marbled oil-cloth below.

I feel sometimes as if I could hardly live until my father-in-law rises
from his chair and kisses his wife good-bye before going off to the
factory. She always blushes so prettily when he kisses her--as if it
were for the first time. Then everybody looks pained when Peter and I
just nod at each other as he goes out--I cannot be affectionate to him
before them--and then, thank Heaven! the rest of us escape from the
dining-room.

How Peggy, who has been away from home and seen and done things, can
stand it there now as it is, is a continual wonder to me.

Peggy is a dear little thing. Peter has always been awfully fond of her,
but she doesn't seem to have an idea in her head beyond her clothes and
Harry Goward, though she'll HAVE to have something more to her if she's
going to keep HIM. The moment I saw that boy, of course I knew that he
had the artistic temperament; I've