seen so much of it. He's the kind
that's always awfully gloomy until eleven o'clock in the morning, and
has to make love intensely to somebody every evening. What it must have
been to that boy, after indulging in a romantic dream with poor little
earnest, downright Peggy, to wake up and find the engagement taken
seriously not only by her, but by all her relatives--find himself
being welcomed into the family, introduced to them all as a future
member--what it must have been to him I can't imagine! Peggy has no
more temperament than a cow--the combination of Maria and Tom, and
Grandmother Evarts, and Billy with his face washed clean, and Alice with
three enormous bows on her hair, all waiting to welcome him, standing by
the pictorial lamp on the brown worsted mat on the centre-table, made
me fairly howl when I sat at home and thought of it--and that was before
I'd SEEN Harry.

The family were, of course, quite "hurt" that Peter and I wouldn't
assist at the celebration. I cannot see why people WILL want you to do
things when they KNOW you don't care to!

The next evening, however, we had to go, when Peggy herself came around
and asked us. Of course Mr. Goward was with Peggy most of the time.
They certainly looked charming together, but rather conscious and stiff.
Every member of the family was watching his every motion. Oh, I've been
there! I know what it is!

Some of the neighbors were there, too. Peter hardly ever plays on the
big, old-fashioned grand-piano, but that night he was so bored he had
to. The family always THINK they're very musical--you can know the style
when I tell you that after Peter has been rambling through bits from
Schumann and Richard Strauss they always ask him if he won't "play
something." Well, after Peggy had gone into the other room with her
mother to do the polite to Mrs. Temple, Mr. Goward gravitated over
to where I sat in the big bay-window behind the piano; he had that
"be-good-to-me,-won't-you?" air that I know so well! Then we got to
talking and listening in between whiles--he knows lots of girls in the
Art League--till Peter began playing that heart-breaking "Im Herbst"
from the Franz Songs, and then he said:

"You're going to be my sister, aren't you? Won't you let me hold your
hand while your husband's playing that? It makes me feel so lonely!"

I answered, promptly, "Certainly; hold both hands if you like!"

And we laughed, and Peter turned around for a moment and smiled, too.
O