bravely, "we can only just do as we always have done--and not make any
difference--can we?"

"Except that I feel I must be here, because we can't know from minute to
minute what may come up."

"You feel you can't leave me, mother. But you can. I want to see whoever
comes, just as usual. I'd have to at some time, you know, at any rate.
And I mean to do it now--until I go away out of Eastridge. Charles is
going to arrange that so very wonderfully. He has gone to New York now
to see about it."

"He has, my dear?" I said, in some surprise.

"Yes. And, mother, about--about what's over," she whispered.

"Yes."

"Oh, just--just it couldn't all have happened in this way if"--she spoke
in quite a clear, soft voice, looking straight into my eyes, with one of
her quick turns--"he were a real MAN--anybody I could think of as being
my husband. It was just that I didn't truly know him. That was all."

We held each other's hands fast for one moment of perfect understanding
before we rose.

"Then I'll go, dear, this morning, just as you like," I said. She came
into my room and fastened my cuff-pins for me. "Why, mother, I don't
believe you and your little duchesse cuffs and your little, fine, gold
watch-chain have ever been away from the chair of the library committee
at a board meeting for twenty years! Just think what a sensation you
were going to make if I hadn't interfered! There, how nice you look!"

The weather was so inclement during my absence that I felt quite secure
concerning all intrusion for her. At noon the storm rose high, with
a close-timed thunder and lightning; the Episcopal church spire was
struck; two trees were blown over in the square; and, instead of
ordering Dan and the horses out in this tumult, I dined with a board
member living next the library, and drove home at three o'clock when the
violence of the gale had abated.

The house was perfectly still when I reached it. The children were at
school; Cyrus, at the factory; mother, napping, with her door closed. In
her own room up-stairs, in the middle of the house, Peggy sat alone, in
a loose wrapper, with her hair flying over her shoulders. An open book
lay unnoticed in her lap. Her face was white and tear-stained, and her
eyes looked wild and ill.

As her glance fell on me I saw her need of me, and hurried in to close
the door. "Oh, mother; mother!" she moaned. "Such a morning! It's all
come back--all I fought against--all I was conquering. What d