ose that means YOU are something else?" I asked him.

"I'm afraid it means I'm nothing else," he answered; and while I was
glad he was so honest, I couldn't help feeling anxious at having Peggy
engaged to a man so unformed in his beliefs. I do not care so much
WHAT people believe, for I am not bigoted, as that they should believe
SOMETHING, and that with their whole hearts. There are a great many
young men like Henry Goward, to-day, who have no fixed beliefs and
no established principles beyond a vague desire to be what they call
"decent fellows." One needs more than that in this world.

However, I found the boy likable, and everything went smoothly for a
time, when all at once I felt something had gone wrong--what, I didn't
know. Mr. Goward received a telegram and left suddenly. Ada, I could
see, was anxious; Peggy, tearful; and, as if this wasn't enough, Mrs.
Temple, our new neighbor, who had seemed a sensible body to me, had
some sort of a falling-out with Aunt Elizabeth, who pretended that Mrs.
Temple was jealous of her! After Mrs. Temple had gone home, Elizabeth
Talbert went around pleased as Punch and swore us all to solemn secrecy
never to tell any one about "Mrs. Temple's absurd jealousy."

"You needn't worry about me, Aunt Elizabeth," I said. "I'm not likely to
go around proclaiming that ANOTHER woman has made a fool of herself."

Elizabeth Talbert is one of those women who live on a false basis. She
is a case of arrested development. She enjoys the same amusements that
she did fifteen years ago. She is like a young fruit that has been put
up in a preserving fluid and gives the illusion of youth; the preserving
fluid in her case is the disappointment she suffered as a girl. I like
useful women--women who, whether married or unmarried, bring things to
pass in this world, and Elizabeth does not. Still, I can't help feeling
sorry for her, poor thing; in the end our own shortcomings and vanities
hurt us more than they hurt any one else. I heartily wish she would get
married--I have known women older than Elizabeth, and worse-looking, to
find husbands--both for her own sake and for Ada's, for her comings
and goings complicate life for my daughter. She diffuses around her an
atmosphere of criticism--I do not think she ever returns from a visit to
the city without wishing that we should have dinner at night, and Alice
is beginning to prick up her ears and listen to her. She spends a great
deal of time over her dress