`` This is what I 'D like to know , '' said Peter . `` How did Peg Bowen know my father was coming home ? Do n't you tell me she is n't a witch after that . '' `` And she knew about your Aunt Olivia 's wedding , too , '' added Sara Ray . `` Oh , well , she likely heard that from some one . Grown up folks talk things over long before they tell them to children , '' said Cecily . `` Well , she could n't have heard father was coming home from any one , '' answered Peter . `` He was converted up in Maine , where nobody knew him , and he never told a soul he was coming till he got here . No , you can believe what you like , but I 'm satisfied at last that Peg is a witch and that skull of hers does tell her things . She told me father was coming home and he come ! '' `` How happy you must be , '' sighed Sara Ray romantically . `` It 's just like that story in the Family Guide , where the missing earl comes home to his family just as the Countess and Lady Violetta are going to be turned out by the cruel heir . '' Felicity sniffed . `` There 's some difference , I guess . The earl had been imprisoned for years in a loathsome dungeon . '' Perhaps Peter 's father had too , if we but realized it -- imprisoned in the dungeon of his own evil appetites and habits , than which none could be more loathsome . But a Power , mightier than the forces of evil , had struck off his fetters and led him back to his long-forfeited liberty and light . And no countess or lady of high degree could have welcomed a long-lost earl home more joyfully than the tired little washerwoman had welcomed the erring husband of her youth . But in Peter 's ointment of joy there was a fly or two . So very , very few things are flawless in this world , even on the golden road .
`` Of course I 'm awful glad that father has come back and that ma wo n't have XXXXX wash any more , '' he said with a sigh , `` but there are two things that kind of worry me .
about before by if like of on than that to