always awfully gloomy until eleven o’clock in the morning, and has to make love intensely to somebody every evening.  What it must have been to that boy, after indulging in a romantic dream with poor little earnest, downright Peggy, to wake up and find the engagement taken seriously not only by her, but by all her relatives—­find himself being welcomed into the family, introduced to them all as a future member—­what it must have been to him I can’t imagine!  Peggy has no more temperament than a cow—­the combination of Maria and Tom, and Grandmother Evarts, and Billy with his face washed clean, and Alice with three enormous bows on her hair, all waiting to welcome him, standing by the pictorial lamp on the brown worsted mat on the centre-table, made me fairly howl when I sat at home and thought of it—­and that was before I’d seen Harry.

The family were, of course, quite “hurt” that Peter and I wouldn’t assist at the celebration.  I cannot see why people will want you to do things when they know you don’t care to!

The next evening, however, we had to go, when Peggy herself came around and asked us.  Of course Mr. Goward was with Peggy most of the time.  They certainly looked charming together, but rather conscious and stiff.  Every member of the family was watching his every motion.  Oh, I’ve been there!  I know what it is!

Some of the neighbors were there, too.  Peter hardly ever plays on the big, old-fashioned grand-piano, but that night he was so bored he had to.  The family always think they’re very musical—­you can know the style when I tell you that after Peter has been rambling through bits from Schumann and Richard Strauss they always ask him if he won’t “play something.”  Well, after Peggy had gone into the other room with her mother to do the polite to Mrs. Temple, Mr. Goward gravitated over to where I sat in the big bay-window behind the piano; he had that “be-good-to-me,-won’t-you?” air that I know so well!  Then we got to talking and listening in between whiles—­he knows lots of girls in the Art League—­till Peter began playing that heart-breaking “Im Herbst” from the Franz Songs, and then he said: 

“You’re going to be my sister, aren’t you?  Won’t you let me hold your hand while your husband’s playing that?  It makes me feel so lonely!”

I answered, promptly, “Certainly; hold both hands if you like!”

And we laughed, and Peter turned around for a moment and smiled, too.  Oh, it was nice to meet somebody of one’s own kind!  You get so sick of having everything taken seriously.

That night, after we’d left the house, Harry caught up with us at the corner on his way to the hotel, and went home with us, and we all talked until three o’clock in the morning.  We simply ate all over the house—­goodness! how hungry we were!  At Peter’s home it’s an unheard-of thing to eat anything after half-past six—­almost a crime, unless it’s a wedding or state reception.  We began now with coffee in the dining-room, and jam and cheese, and ended by gradual stages at hot lobster in the chafing-dish in the studio—­the darky was out all night, as usual.