them look as if she had bought them at a department store for
ninety-eight cents. And the way she keeps her house must be maddening,
I should think, to a brilliant man. Fancy the books on the table being
all arranged with the large ones under the small ones in perfectly even
piles! I am sure that he has his meals on time, and I am equally sure
that the principal dishes are preserves and hot biscuits and cake. That
sort of diet simply shows forth in Mrs. Temple and her children. I am
sure that his socks are always mended, but I know that he always wipes
his feet before he enters the house, that it has become a matter of
conscience with him; and those exactions are to me pathetic. These
reflections are uncommonly like the popular conception as to how an
old-maid aunt should reflect, had she not ceased to exist. Sometimes I
wish she were still existing and that I carried out her character to
the full. I am not at all sure but she, as she once was, coming here,
would not have brought more happiness than I have. I must say I thought
so when I saw poor Harry Goward turn so pale when he first saw me after
my arrival. Why, in the name of common-sense, Ada, my sister-in-law,
when she wrote to me at the Pollards', announcing Peggy's engagement,
could not have mentioned who the man was, I cannot see.

Sometimes it seems to me that only the girl and the engagement figure
at all in such matters. I suppose Peggy always alluded to me as "dear
Aunt Elizabeth," when that poor young fellow knew me at the
Abercrombies', where we were staying a year ago, as Miss Lily Talbert.
The situation with regard to him and Peggy fairly puzzles me. I simply
do not know what to do. Goodness knows I never lifted my finger to
attract him. Flirtations between older women and boys always have
seemed to me contemptible. I never particularly noticed him, although
he is a charming young fellow, and there is not as much difference in
our ages as in those of Harriet Munroe and her husband, and if I am not