"Us, Letitia?"
"Yes; I made her promise it. She refused at first, but I told her there were hearts as loving in Grassy Ford as in New York—oh, I hope there are, Bertram; I hope there are! She will go first to the farm, of course, to see her mother, and then, before she comes back to this new mother, who makes me burn, Bertram, when I ask myself if any woman in Grassy Ford would have done as much—then she will visit us. It will mean so much to her. It will set that poor, spoiled life right again before our petty, little, self-righteous world. Oh, I shall make them receive her, Bertram! I shall make them take her in their arms!"
She paused breathlessly, but I was silent.
"I thought you wouldn't mind," she said.
Still I could not speak.
"Tell me," she urged, "did I presume too much? Was I wrong to ask her without consulting you?"
"No," I answered—but not through kindness as Letitia thought, let me confess it; not through having the tenderest man's heart in the world, as she said, gratefully, but because I knew—how, she will always wonder—that Peggy would never come.