When I got back mamma and Grandma Evarts and Tom Price and Peggy and Aunt Elizabeth were in the parlor, looking more excited than ever, because Maria had been there telling the family about Lorraine.  Then she had gone on to Lorraine’s and Tom had dropped in to call for her and was waiting to hear about the letter.  They were all watching the door when I came in, and Peggy and Aunt Elizabeth started to get up, but sat down again.  I stood there hesitating because, of course, I didn’t know who to give it to, and Grandma Evarts shot out, “Well, Alice!  Well, Well!” as if she was blowing the words at me from a little peashooter.  Then I began to explain about the address, but before I could say more than two or three words mamma motioned to me and I gave the letter to her.

You could have heard an autumn leaf fall in that room.  Mamma put on her glasses and puzzled over the smear on the envelope, and Peggy drew a long breath and jumped up and walked over to mamma and held out her hand.  Mamma didn’t hesitate a minute.  “Certainly it must be for you, my dear,” she said, and then she added, in a very cold, positive way, “For whom else could it possibly be intended?” No one spoke; but just as Peggy had put her finger under the flap to tear it open, Aunt Elizabeth got up and crossed the room to where mamma and Peggy stood.  She spoke very softly and quietly, but she looked queer and excited.

“Wait one moment, my dear,” she said to Peggy.  “Very probably the letter is for you, but it is just possible that it may be for some one else.  Wouldn’t it be safer—­wiser—­for me to open it?”

Then Peggy cried out, “Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, how dreadful!  How can you say such a thing!” Mother had hesitated an instant when Aunt Elizabeth spoke, but now she drew Peggy’s head down to her dear, comfy shoulder, and Peggy stayed right there and cried as hard as she could—­with little gasps and moans as if she felt dreadfully nervous.  Then, for once in my life, I saw my mother angry.  She looked over Peggy’s head at Aunt Elizabeth, and her face was so dreadful it made me shiver.

“Elizabeth,” she said, and she brought her teeth right down hard on the word, “this is the climax of your idiocy.  Have you the audacity to claim here, before me, that this letter from my child’s affianced husband is addressed to you?”

Aunt Elizabeth looked very pale now, but when she answered she spoke as quietly as before.

“If it is, Ada,” she said, “it is against my wish and my command.  But—­it may be.”  Then her voice changed as if she were really begging for something.

“Let me open it,” she said.  “If it is for Peggy I can tell by the first line or two, even if he does not use the name.  Surely it will do no harm if I glance at it.”

Mother looked even angrier than before.

“Well,” she said, “it could do no harm, you think, if you read a letter intended for Peggy, but you don’t dare to risk letting Peggy read a letter addressed by Harry Goward to you.  This is intolerable, Elizabeth Talbert.  You have passed the limit of my endurance—­and of my husband’s.”