een
punished for speaking when I shouldn't, and, besides, it was my duty to
find myself. They saw me, and then forgot. If they hadn't wanted me to
know what they were saying, they shouldn't have said it.

But that didn't do my conscience any good. I hate a conscience. It's
always making you feel low down and disreputable. I don't believe I will
say anything to my children about one, and let them have some peace.

For two days I didn't have any. Then I decided I'd wait until Miss
Katherine came, and not say anything to her or to anybody about what I'd
heard until I found out a little more about that remembrance in her
face. But the waiting for her is the longest wait I've ever waited
through yet.

It certainly is queer what a surprise you are to yourself. Before I knew
that my mother and her father and his father and some other fathers
behind him had lived in the Alden House, I would have given all I own,
which isn't much, just my body, to have known it. And I guess I would
have been that airy Martha couldn't have lived with me, and would have
had to take Mary to the pump to bring her senses back with water. Mary
is my best part, but at times she hasn't half the common sense she
needs, and frequently has a pride Martha has to attend to.

But after I found out I had the same kind of blood in me that Mrs.
General Rodman had in her, though I'm thankful it isn't mentioned on the
family's tombstones, it didn't seem half as big a thing as I thought.

I was ashamed of the way it had acted, and of the way it had treated my
father. He was too much of a gentleman to talk about his, whether high
or low, and I know nothing about him. But I adore his memory! I am his
child as well as Mary Alden's, and that's a thing my children are never
going to forget. Never.

And now the part I'm thinking of most is what was said about Miss
Katherine and Dr. Parke Alden being sweethearts when they were young. He
has been away thirteen years, Mrs. Moon said, and Miss Katherine is now
twenty-eight. I know she is, because she told me so.

Thirteen from twenty-eight leaves fifteen, so she was fifteen when they
had that fuss and he went off. Fifteen was awful young to love hard and
permanent; but Miss Webb says Miss Katherine was born grown and
stubborn, and when she once takes a stand she keeps it.

I wonder what she took the stand with Uncle Parke for? She is right
quick and outspoken at times, and I bet he made her mad about
something.

B