* * * * *

'_Most four months later_.

It's been ages since I've written here, I know. But there's nothing
special happened. Everything has been going along just about as it did
at the first. Oh, there is one thing different--Peter's gone. He went
two months ago. We've got an awfully old chauffeur now. One with gray
hair and glasses, and homely, too. His name is Charles. The very first
day he came, Aunt Hattie told me never to talk to Charles, or bother
him with questions; that it was better he should keep his mind
entirely on his driving.

She needn't have worried. I should never dream of asking him the
things I did Peter. He's too stupid. Now Peter and I got to be real
good friends--until all of a sudden Grandpa told him he might go. I
don't know why.

I don't see as I'm any nearer finding out who Mother's lover will be
than I was four months ago. I suppose it's still too soon. Peter
said one day he thought widows ought to wait at least a year, and he
guessed grass-widows were just the same. My, how mad I was at him for
using that name about my mother! Oh, I knew what he meant. I'd heard
it at school. (I know now what it was that made those girls act so
queer and horrid.) There was a girl--I never liked her, and I suspect
she didn't like me, either. Well, she found out Mother had a divorce.
(You see, _I_ hadn't told it. I remembered how those girls out West
bragged.) And she told a lot of the others. But it didn't work at all
as it had in the West. None of the girls in this school here had a
divorce in their families; and, if you'll believe it, they acted--some