would love anybody but me. I actually felt faint for a second. Then I
talked. I told him what a dishonorable wretch he was, and said he might
as well have plunged a knife into an innocent, confiding girl at once
as to have treated Peggy so. I told him to go away and let me alone and
write friendly letters to Peggy, and see if he would not recover his
senses, if he had any to recover, which I thought doubtful; and then
when he said he would not budge a step, that he would remain in
Eastridge, if only for the sake of breathing the same air I did, that
he would tell Peggy the whole truth at once, and bear all the blame
which he deserved for being so dishonorable, I arose to the occasion. I
said, "Very well, remain, but you may have to breathe not only the same
air that I do, but also the same air that the man whom I am to marry
does." I declare that I had no man whatever in mind. I said it in sheer
desperation. Then the boy burst forth with another torrent, and the
secret was out.

My brother and my sister-in-law and Grandmother Evarts and the
children, for all I know, have all been match-making for me. I did not
suspect it of them. I supposed they esteemed my case as utterly
hopeless, and then I knew that Cyrus knew about--well, never mind; I
don't often mention him to myself. I certainly thought that they all
would have as soon endeavored to raise the dead as to marry me, but it
seems that they have been thinking that while there is life there is
hope, or rather, while there are widowers there is hope. And there is a
widower in Eastridge--Dr. Denbigh. He is the candle about which the
mothlike dreams of ancient maidens and widows have fluttered, to their
futile singeing, for the last twenty years. I really did not dream that
they would think I would flutter, even if I was an old-maid aunt. But
Harry cried out that if I were going to marry Dr. Denbigh he would go
away. He never would stay and be a witness to such sacrilege. "That OLD