must confess
if I had been juryman sitting in judgment of the case I should have
convicted her of kidnapping without leaving the box. To begin with,
there was the case of Ned Temple. I haven't quite been able to get away
from the notion that however short-sighted and gauche poor Mrs. Temple's
performance was in going over to the Talberts' to make a scene because
of Aunt Elizabeth's attentions to Temple, she thought she was justified
in doing so, and Elizabeth's entire innocence in the premises, in view
of her record as a man-snatcher, has not been proven to my satisfaction.
Then there was that Lyman Wilde business, which I never understood
and haven't wanted to until they tried to mix poor Lorraine up in it.
Certain it is that Elizabeth and Wilde were victims of an affair of the
heart, but what Lorraine has had to do with it I don't know, and I hope
the whole matter will be dropped at least until we have settled poor
Peggy's affair. Then came Goward and this complication, and through
it all Elizabeth has had a weather-eye open for Dr. Denbigh. A rather
suggestive chain of evidence that, proving that Elizabeth seems to
regard all men as her own individual property. As Mrs. Evarts says, she
perks up even when Billie comes into the room--or Mr. Talbert, either;
and as for me--well, in the strictest confidence, if Aunt Elizabeth
hasn't tried to flirt even with me, then I don't know what flirtation
is, and there was a time--long before I was married, of course--when I
possessed certain well-developed gifts in that line. I know this,
that when I was first paying my addresses to Maria, Aunt Elizabeth was
staying at the Talberts' as usual, and Maria and I had all we could do
to get rid of her. She seemed to be possessed with the idea that I came
there every night to see her, and not a hint in the whole category of
polite intimations seemed capable of conveying any other idea to her
mind, although she showed at times that even a chance remark fell upon
heeding ears, for once when I observed that pink was my favorite
color, she blossomed out in it the next day and met me looking like a
peach-tree in full bloom, on Main Street as I walked from my office up
home. And while we are discussing other people's weaknesses I may as
well confess my own, and say that I was so pleased at this unexpected
revelation of interest in my tastes that when I called that evening
I felt vaguely disappointed to learn that Aunt Elizabeth was dining
out-