I used to notice Peter 's mistakes . When he said ' I seen , ' it jarred on me in my salad days . I tried , oh , so tactfully , to reform him in that respect . Peter did n't like being reformed -- the Wrights always had a fairly good opinion of themselves , you know . It was really over a question of syntax we quarrelled . Peter told me I 'd have to take him as he was , grammar and all , or go without him . I went without him -- and ever since I 've been wondering if I were really sorry , or if it were merely a pleasantly sentimental regret I was hugging to my heart . I daresay it 's the latter . Now , Louisa , I see the beginning of the plot far down in those placid eyes of yours . Strangle it at birth , dear Louisa . There is no use in your trying to make up a match between Peter and me now -- no , nor in slyly inviting him up here to tea some evening , as you are even this moment thinking of doing . '' `` Well , I must go and milk the cows , '' gasped Louisa , rather glad to make her escape . Nancy 's power of thought-reading struck her as uncanny . She felt afraid to remain with her cousin any longer , lest Nancy should drag to light all the secrets of her being . Nancy sat long on the steps after Louisa had gone -- sat until the night came down , darkly and sweetly , over the garden , and the stars twinkled out above the firs . This had been her home in girlhood . Here she had lived and kept house for her father . When he died , Curtis Shaw , newly married to her cousin Louisa , bought the farm from her and moved in . Nancy stayed on with them , expecting soon to go to a home of her own . She and Peter Wright were engaged .
Then came their mysterious quarrel , concerning the cause of which kith and kin XXXXX both sides were left in annoying ignorance .
above after as at from if in of on over