She was especially horrified when Jem wrote in his last letter to mother , ` Tell Susan I had a fine cootie hunt this morning and caught fifty-three ! ' Susan positively turned pea-green . ` Mrs. Dr. dear , ' she said , ` when I was young , if decent people were so unfortunate as to get -- those insects -- they kept it a secret if possible . I do not want to be narrow-minded , Mrs. Dr. dear , but I still think it is better not to mention such things . ' `` Miranda grew confidential over our vermin shirts and told me all her troubles . She is desperately unhappy . She is engaged to Joe Milgrave and Joe joined up in October and has been training in Charlottetown ever since . Her father was furious when he joined and forbade Miranda ever to have any dealing or communication with him again . Poor Joe expects to go overseas any day and wants Miranda to marry him before he goes , which shows that there have been ` communications ' in spite of Whiskers-on-the-moon . Miranda wants to marry him but can not , and she declares it will break her heart . '' ` Why do n't you run away and marry him ? ' I said . It did n't go against my conscience in the least to give her such advice . Joe Milgrave is a splendid fellow and Mr. Pryor fairly beamed on him until the war broke out and I know Mr. Pryor would forgive Miranda very quickly , once it was over and he wanted his housekeeper back . But Miranda shook her silvery head dolefully . '' ` Joe wants me to but I ca n't . Mother 's last words to me , as she lay on her dying-bed , were , `` Never , never run away , Miranda , '' and I promised . ' `` Miranda 's mother died two years ago , and it seems , according to Miranda , that her mother and father actually ran away to be married themselves . To picture Whiskers-on-the-moon as the hero of an elopement is beyond my power . But such was the case and Mrs. Pryor at least lived to repent it .
She had a hard life of it with Mr. Pryor , and she thought it was a punishment XXXXX her for running away .
against as before on once over since that until with