I think of this affair about Harry Goward I
don't believe she ever felt sure of him; that is why she is so worked
up over this matter now. I know there was something that I felt from the
first through all her excitement, something that wasn't quite happy in
her happiness. I feel atmospheres at once; I just can't help it. And
when I get feeling other people's atmospheres too much I lose my own,
and then I can't paint. I began so well the other day with the picture
of that Armenian peddler, and now since Alice left I can't do a thing
with it; his bare yellow knees look just like ugly grape-fruit. I wish
Sally was in. She can't cook, but she can do a song-and-dance that's
worth its weight in gold when you're down in the mouth.

--Just then I looked out of the window and saw my mother-in-law coming
in. For a minute I was frightened. I'd never seen her look like that
before--so white and almost OLD; she seemed hardly able to walk, and I
ran to the door and helped her in, and put her in a chair and her
feet on a footstool, and got her my dear little Venetian bottle of
smelling-salts with the long silver chain; it's so beautiful it makes
you feel better just to look at it. I whisked Peter's shoes out into the
hall, and when I sat down by her she put her hand out to me and said,
"Dear child," and I got all throaty, the way I do when any one speaks
like that to me, for, oh, I HAVE been lonesome for Dad and Momsey and my
own dear home! though no one ever seems to imagine it, and I said:

"Oh, can't I do something for you, Madonna?" I usually just call her
"you," but once in a great while, when there's nobody else around, I
call her Madonna, and I know she likes it, even if she does think it a
little Romish or sacrilegious or something queer.

But she said she didn't want anything, only to rest a few minutes, and
that there was something she wanted me to tell Peter. She couldn't come
in the evening to see him without every one wanting to know why she
came. There was some terrible trouble about Peggy's engagement. She
flushed up and hesitated, and when I broke in to say, "You needn't
bother to explain, I know all about the whole thing," she didn't seem at
all surprised or ask how I knew--she only seemed relieved to find
that she could go right on. I never can be demonstrative to her before
people, but I just put my arms around her now when she said:

"It's a great comfort to be able to come to you, Lorraine, and speak
out. At h