"What did your aunt say?"

"She was very dignified. She had not expected to hear such a thing from
me. Then she walked away."

"I hope you asked her pardon."

"I had no chance. She has gone to Chicago--was on her way to the station
then. I will, of course."

"For a young thing your ideas are not bad, though your problem is
entangled in foolish convention, personal pride and so on. But neither
you nor I was born to set the world right. Now cheer up and think no
more about it for the present. Be ready at two o'clock to go to the park
with me. The superintendent's child is ill again."

Having delivered her prescription, Dr. Prue left, and her patient
returned to her hearth-stone and an endeavour to be honest with
herself. Virginia had interrupted this most difficult process with her
fairy-tale. While it could not be said to bear upon the situation, after
she had left Margaret Elizabeth was conscious of a faint lightening of
the fog.

As they sped smoothly toward the park, in the new electric, Margaret
Elizabeth driving, Dr. Prue exclaimed, "There, I'm forgetting that
letter again." Unfastening her bag she held it open while she continued,
"I hope you'll forgive whoever is to blame, but when the hall was being
cleaned yesterday, James fished this out of the umbrella jar. Dear knows
how it got there or when; it looks as if it had been in a shipwreck."
She produced a stained and sorry-looking missive from her bag. "You can