Sometimes we caught her turning it
on her finger with a very troubled face.
"I would be sorry for Mr. Malcolm MacPherson if he were not so much
in love with her," said Peggy. "But as he thinks that she is perfection
he doesn't need sympathy."
"I am sorry for Aunt Olivia," I said. "Yes, Peggy, I am.
Mr. MacPherson is a splendid man, but Aunt Olivia is a born old maid,
and it is outraging her very nature to be anything else.
Don't you see how it's hurting her? His big, splendid man-ways
are harrowing her very soul up--she can't get out of her little,
narrow groove, and it is killing her to be pulled out."
"Nonsense!" said Peggy. Then she added with a laugh,
"Mary, did you ever see anything so funny as Aunt Olivia sitting
on 'Mr. Malcolm MacPherson's' knee?"
It WAS funny. Aunt Olivia thought it very unbecoming to sit
there before us, but he made her do it. He would say,
with his big, jolly laugh, "Don't be minding the little girls,"
and pull her down on his knee and hold her there.
To my dying day I shall never forget the expression on the poor
little woman's face.
But, as the days went by and Mr. Malcolm MacPherson began
to insist on a date being set for the wedding, Aunt Olivia grew
to have a strangely disturbed look.
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