about Elizabeth Talbert for once.

Ada only said, "Elizabeth and I have always been such good friends, and
she's so fond of Peggy."

Ada doesn't realize that with some women vanity is stronger than
loyalty. She kissed me. "It's done me good to talk to you, mother," she
said, "because now it doesn't seem, when I put it outside myself, that
there's very much of anything to worry about."

Ada has always been like that--she seems to get rid of her troubles just
by telling them. Now she had passed her riddle on to me, and I could not
keep Peggy and her affairs from my mind. I tried to tell myself that it
would be better for every one to find out now than later if Henry Goward
was not worthy to be Peggy's husband. But, oh, for all their sakes, how
I hoped this cloud, whatever it was, would blow over! I have a very good
constitution and I know how to take care of it, but when several more
days passed without Peggy's hearing from Henry again I gave way, but I
tried to keep up on Ada's account. I began to see how much this young
man's honor and faithfulness meant to Peggy, and I took long excursions
back into the past to remember how I felt at her age. Mail-time was the
difficult time for all three of us. Before the postman came Peggy would
brighten up; not that she was drooping at any time, only I knew how
tensely she waited, because Ada and I waited with her. When the man
came, and again no letters, Peggy held up her head bravely as could be,
but I could see, all the same, how the light had gone out. The worst of
it was, everybody knew about it. It would have been twice as easy
for the child if she could have borne it alone, but Elizabeth Talbert
watched the mail like a cat, and even manoeuvred to try and get the
letters before Peggy, while Alice went around with her nose in the air,
and I heard Maria saying to Ada:

"What's all this about Harry Goward's not writing?"

To escape it all I took to my room, coming down only for meals. I
couldn't eat a thing, and Cyrus noticed it--it is queer how observant
men are about some things and how unobservant about others. He didn't
tell me what he was going to do, but in the afternoon Dr. Denbigh came
to see me. That's the way they do--I'm liable to have the doctor sent in
to look me over any time, whether I want him or not. Dr. Denbigh is an
excellent friend and a good doctor, but at my time of life I should be
lacking in intelligence if I didn't understand my constitution better