THE MARRYING OF SUSAN CLEGG

Susan Clegg and Mrs. Lathrop were next-door neighbors and bosom friends.  Their personalities were extremely congenial, and the theoretical relation which the younger woman bore to the elder was a further bond between them.  Owing to the death of her mother some twenty years before, Susan had fallen into the position of a helpless and timid young girl whose only key to the problems of life in general had been the advice of her older and wiser neighbor.  As a matter of fact Mrs. Lathrop was barely twelve years the senior, but she had married and as a consequence felt and was felt to be immeasurably the more ancient of the two.

Susan had never married, for her father—­a bedridden paralytic—­had occupied her time day and night for years.  He was a great care and as she did her duty by him with a thoroughness which was praiseworthy in the extreme she naturally had very little leisure for society.  Mrs. Lathrop had more, because her family consisted of but one son, and she was not given to that species of housekeeping which sweeps under the beds too often.  It therefore came about that the one and only recreation which the friends could enjoy together to any great extent was visiting over the fence.  Visiting over the fence is an occupation in which any woman may indulge without fear of unkind criticism.  If she takes occasion to run in next door, she is of course leaving the house which she ought to be keeping, but she can lean on the fence all day without feeling derelict as to a single duty.  Then, too, there is something about the situation which produces a species of agreeable subconsciousness that one is at once at home and abroad.  It followed that Susan and Mrs. Lathrop each wore a path from her kitchen door to the trysting-spot, and that all summer long they met there early and late.

Mrs. Lathrop did the listening while she chewed clover.  Just beyond her woodpile red clover grew luxuriantly, and when she started for the place of meeting it was her invariable custom to stop and pull a number of blossoms so that she might eat the tender petals while devoting her attention to the business in hand.

It must be confessed that the business in hand was nearly always Miss Clegg’s business, but since Mrs. Lathrop, in her position of experienced adviser, was deeply interested in Susan’s exposition of her own affairs, that trifling circumstance appeared of little moment.

One of the main topics of conversation was Mr. Clegg.  As Mr. Clegg had not quitted his bed for over a score of years, it might seem that his novelty as a subject of discussion would have been long since exhausted.  But not so.  His daughter was the most devoted of daughters, and his name was ever rife on her lips.  What he required done for him and what he required done to him were the main ends of her existence, and the demands of his comfort, daily or annual, resulted