marry me, but it seems that they have
been thinking that while there is life there is hope, or rather,
while there are widowers there is hope. And there is a widower in
Eastridge--Dr. Denbigh. He is the candle about which the mothlike dreams
of ancient maidens and widows have fluttered, to their futile singeing,
for the last twenty years. I really did not dream that they would think
I would flutter, even if I was an old-maid aunt. But Harry cried out
that if I were going to marry Dr. Denbigh he would go away. He never
would stay and be a witness to such sacrilege. "That OLD man!" he raved.
And when I said I was not a young girl myself he got all the madder.
Well, I allowed him to think I was going to marry Dr. Denbigh (I
wonder what the doctor would say), and as a consequence Harry will flit
to-morrow, and he is with poor little Peggy out in the grape-arbor, and
she is crying her eyes out. If he dares tell her what a fool he is I
could kill him. I am horribly afraid that he will let it out, for I
never saw such an alarmingly impetuous youth. Young Lochinvar out of the
west was mere cambric tea to him. I am really thankful that he has not
a gallant steed, nor even an automobile, for the old-maid aunt might yet
be captured as the Sabine women were.

Well, thank fortune, Harry has left, and he cannot have told, for poor
little Peggy has been sitting with me for a solid hour, sniffing, and
sounding his praises. Somehow the child made me think of myself at
her age. I was about a year older when my tragedy came and was never
righted. Hers, I think, will be, since Harry was not such an ass as to
confess before he went away. But all the same, I am concerned for her
happiness, for Harry is either fickle or deceitful. Sometimes I wonder
what my duty is, but I can't tell the child. It would do no more good
for me to consult my brother Cyrus than it did to consult Ada. I know of
no one whom I can consult. Charles Edward and his wife, who is just
like Ada, pretty, but always with her shirt-waist hunching in the back,
sitting wrong, and standing lopsided, and not worrying enough to give
her character salt and pepper, are there. (I should think she would
drive Charles Edward, who is really an artist, only out of his proper
sphere, mad.) Tom and Maria are down there, too, on the piazza, and Ada
at her everlasting darning, and Alice bossing Billy as usual. I can hear
her voice. I think I will put on another gown and go for a walk.

I