he was going to pick our first peas, so as to have them perfectly
fresh for dinner, she said that he would better not pick them to-day,
because the vegetable man had been along just after breakfast, and he
had had such nice green peas that she had bought some, and therefore
he had better keep his peas for some other day.

"Now, I don't want you to think that mother isn't just as good as
gold, for she is. But she doesn't take such interest in garden things
as father does, and to her all peas are peas, provided they are good
ones. But when father heard what she had done I know that he felt
exactly as if he had been stabbed in one of his tenderest places. He
did not say one word, and he walked right out of the house, and since
that they haven't spoken to each other. It was dreadful to sit at
dinner, neither of them saying a word to the other, and only speaking
to me. It was all so different from the way things generally are that
I can scarcely bear it.

"And I went out this afternoon for no other reason than to give them a
chance to make it up between them. I thought perhaps they would do it
better if they were alone with each other. But of course I do not know
what has happened, and things may be worse than they were. I could not
take a stranger into the house at such a time--they would not like to
be found not speaking to each other--and, besides, I do not know--"

Here I interrupted her, and begged her not to give another thought to
the subject. I wanted very much to go on, and in every way it was the
best thing I could do.

As I finished speaking she pointed out a pretty house standing back
from the road, and told me that was where she lived. In a very few