“Oh, can’t I do something for you, Madonna?” I usually just call her “you,” but once in a great while, when there’s nobody else around, I call her Madonna, and I know she likes it, even if she does think it a little Romish or sacrilegious or something queer.

But she said she didn’t want anything, only to rest a few minutes, and that there was something she wanted me to tell Peter.  She couldn’t come in the evening to see him without every one wanting to know why she came.  There was some terrible trouble about Peggy’s engagement.  She flushed up and hesitated, and when I broke in to say, “You needn’t bother to explain, I know all about the whole thing,” she didn’t seem at all surprised or ask how I knew—­she only seemed relieved to find that she could go right on.  I never can be demonstrative to her before people, but I just put my arms around her now when she said: 

“It’s a great comfort to be able to come to you, Lorraine, and speak out.  At home your dear grandmother considers me so much—­she only thinks of everything as it affects me, but it makes it so that I can’t always show what I feel, for if I do she gets ill.  All I can think of is Peggy.  If you knew what it was to me just now when my little Peggy went away from me and locked herself in her room—­Peggy, who all her life has always come to me for comfort—­”

She stopped for a minute, and I patted her.  It was so unlike my mother-in-law to speak in this way; she’s usually so self-contained that it made me sort of awestruck.  After a moment she went on in a different voice: 

“They all want me to tell Cyrus—­your father—­that Aunt Elizabeth has been trying to take Mr. Goward’s affections away from Peggy.  I’m afraid it’s just what she has been doing, though it seems incredible that she should have any attraction for a young man.  I was glad Elizabeth had gone away overnight, for Maria is in such a state I don’t know what might have happened.”

“And don’t you want to tell—­father?” I gulped, but I knew I must say it.  “Why not, Madonna?”

She shook her head, with that look that makes you feel sometimes that she isn’t just the gentle and placid person that she appears to be.  I seemed to catch a glimpse of something very clear and strong.  If I could paint her with an expression like that I’d make my fortune.

“No, Lorraine.  If it was about anybody but your aunt Elizabeth I would, but I can’t speak against her.  It’s her home as well as mine; I’ve always realized that.  I made up my mind, when I married, that I never would come between brother and sister, and I never have.  Aunt Elizabeth doesn’t know how many times I have smoothed matters over for her, how many times Cyrus has been provoked because he thought she didn’t show enough consideration for me.  I have always loved Aunt Elizabeth, and I believed she loved us—­but when I saw my Peggy to-day, Lorraine, I couldn’t go and tell your father about Aunt Elizabeth while I feel as I do now!  I couldn’t be just.  If I made him angry with her—­”