“Withheld!” repeated Aunt Elizabeth.  “What do you mean by ‘withheld’?  Billy, whom are those letters for?”

In spite of ourselves mother and I started.  Letters have begun to seem rather tragic to us.

“One’s the gas-bill,” said Billy, “and one’s for you.”  Aunt Elizabeth took the large, square envelope and tore it open.  Then she looked at mother and smiled a little and tossed her head.

“This is from Lyman Wilde,” said she.

I thought I had never seen Aunt Elizabeth look so young.  It must have meant something more to mother than it did to me, for she stared at her a minute very seriously.

“I am truly glad for you, Elizabeth,” she said.  Then she turned to me.  “Daughter,” said she, “I shall need you about the salad.”

She smiled at me and went in.  I knew what that meant.  She was giving me a chance to follow her, if I needed to escape.  But there was hardly time.  I was at the door when Aunt Elizabeth rustled after so quickly that it sounded like a flight.  There on the piazza she put her arms about me.

“Child!” she whispered.  “Child!  Verlassen!  Verlassen!”

I drew away a little and looked at her.  Then I thought:  “Why, she is old!” But I hadn’t understood.  I knew the word was German, and I hadn’t taken that in the elective course.

“What is it.  Aunt Elizabeth?” I asked.  I had a feeling I mustn’t leave her.  She smiled a little—­a queer, sad smile.

“Peggy,” said she, “I want you to read this letter.”  She gave it to me.  It was written on very thick gray paper with rough edges, and there was a margin of two inches at the left.  The handwriting was beautiful, only not very clear, and when I had puzzled over it for a minute she snatched it back again.

“I’ll read it to you,” said she.

Well, I thought it was a most beautiful letter.  The gentleman said she had always been the ideal of his life.  He owed everything—­and by everything he meant chiefly his worship of beauty—­to her.  He asked her to accept his undying devotion, and to believe that, however far distance and time should part them, he was hers and hers only.  He said he looked back with ineffable contempt upon the days when he had hoped to build a nest and see her beside him there.  Now he had reached the true empyrean, and he could only ask to know that she, too, was winging her bright way into regions where he, in another life, might follow and sing beside her in liquid, throbbing notes to pierce the stars.  He ended by saying that he was not very fit—­the opera season had been a monumental experience this year—­and he was taking refuge with an English brotherhood to lead, for a time, a cloistered life instinct with beauty and its worship, but that there as everywhere he was hers eternally.  How glad I was of the verbal memory I have been so often praised for!  I knew almost every word of that lovely letter by heart after the one reading.  I shall never forget it.