to have done, or condoned something that I ought not.  They seem to think that a man is made of soft, kindergarten clay, and all a wife has to do is to sit down and mould him as she pleases.  Well, some men may be like that, but Peter isn’t.  The family never really have forgiven me for calling their darling “Charles Edward” Peter.  I perfectly loathe that long-winded Walter-Scotty name, and I don’t care how many grandfathers it’s descended from.  I’m sorry, of course, if it hurts their feelings, but as long as I don’t object to their calling him what they like, I don’t see why they mind.  And as for my managing Peter, they know perfectly well that, though he’s a darling, he’s just mulishly obstinate.  He’s had his own way ever since he was born; the whole family simply adore him.  His mother has always waited on him hand and foot, though she’s sensible enough with the other children.  If he looks sulky she is perfectly miserable.  I am really very fond of my mother-in-law—­that is, I am fond of her in spots.  There are times when she understands how I feel about Peter better than any one else—­like that dreadful spring when he had pneumonia and I was nearly wild.  I know she is dreadfully unselfish and kind, but she will think—­they all do—­that they know what Peter needs better than I do, and whenever they see me alone it’s to hint that I ought to keep him from smoking too much and being extravagant, and that I should make him wear his overcoat and go to bed early and take medicine when he has a cold.  And through everything else they hark back to that everlasting, “If you’d only exert your influence, Lorraine dear, to make Charles Edward take more interest in the business—­his father thinks so much of that.”

If I were to tell them that Charles Edward perfectly detests the business, and will never be interested in it and never make anything out of it, they’d all go straight off the handle; yet they all know it just as well as I do.  That’s the trouble—­you simply can’t tell them the truth about anything; they don’t want to hear it.  I never talk at all any more when I go over to the big house, for I can’t seem to without horrifying somebody.

I thought I should die when I first came here; it was so different from the way it is at home, where you can say or do anything you please without caring what anybody thinks.  Dad has always believed in not restricting individuality, and that girls have just as much right to live their own lives as boys—­which is a fortunate thing, for, counting Momsey, there are four of us.

We never had any system about anything at home, thank goodness!  We just had atmosphere.  Dad was an artist, you know, and he does paint such lovely pictures; but he gave it up as a profession when we were little, and went into business, because, he said, he couldn’t let his family starve—­and we all think it was so perfectly noble of him!  I couldn’t give up being an artist for anybody,