“No, there isn’t,” said Mrs. Lathrop with great firmness.

Susan rose to go.

“I’m thinkin’ o’ buyin’ the Shores baby outfit,” she said.  “I guess Mr. Shores ’ll be glad to sell it cheap.  They say ’t he can’t bear to be reminded o’ the baby, ‘n’ I don’t well see what else the crib ‘n’ the baby carriage can remind him of.”

“I wonder if the sewing-machine reminds him o’ Mrs. Shores,” said Mrs. Lathrop.  “I’d be glad to buy it if it did ‘n’ ‘f he was wantin’ to sell it cheap.”

“I dunno why it sh’d remind him o’ Mrs. Shores,” said Susan; “she never sewed on it none.  She never did nothin’ ’s far ’s I c’d make out except to sit on the front porch ‘n’ talk to his clerk.  My, but I sh’d think he ‘d hate the sight o’ that front porch.  If it c’d be got off, I ’d like to buy that of him too.  My front porch ’s awful old ‘n’ shaky ‘n’ I ’ll need a good porch to wheel baby on.  He c’d take my porch in part payment.  It’s bein’ so old ‘n’ shaky wouldn’t matter to him I don’t suppose, for I ’ll bet a dollar he ’ll never let no other wife o’ his sit out on no porch o’ his, not ’ntil after he’s dead ‘n’ buried anyway; ‘n’ as for sittin’ on a porch himself, well, all is I know ’t if it was me it ’d scorch my rockers.”

“What time do you think ’t you ’11 get back?” asked Mrs. Lathrop.

“I ain’t sure.  ‘F I should get real interested huntin’ orphans, I might stay until it was too dark to see ’em good.  I can’t tell nothin’ about it, though.  You ’d better watch for the light in the kitchen, ‘n’ when you see it burnin’ I wish ’t you’d come right over.”

Mrs. Lathrop agreed to this arrangement, and Miss Clegg went home to get ready for town.

* * * * *

She returned about five o’clock, and the mere general aspect of her approaching figure betokened some doing or doings so well worthy of neighborly interest that Mrs. Lathrop left her bread in the oven and flew to satisfy her curiosity.

She found her friend warming her feet by the kitchen stove, and one look at her radiant countenance sufficed.

“You found a baby!”

Susan upraised supremely joyful eyes.

“No,” she replied, “but I’ve bought the weepin’ lion!”

Mrs. Lathrop sat suddenly down.

“You never saw anythin’ so grand in all your life!  He rubbed the ‘Blank’ off with a wet cloth ‘n’ wrote in the ‘Henry’ with me standin’ right there.  I never see anythin’ that went right through me that way before.  Puttin’ on ‘Henry’ seemed to bring the lion right into the family, an’—­well, you can believe me or not jus’ as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I up ‘n’ begin to cry right then ‘n’ there.  The monument man made me sit down on a uncut block ‘n’ lean my back up against a No-Cross-no-Crown, ‘n’ while I sat there he chalked in father’s birth ‘n’ death ‘n’ ‘Erected by his devoted daughter Susan,’ ‘n’ at that I stood right up ‘n’ said ’t I ’d take it, ‘n’ it wasn’t no hasty decision, neither, f’r after I ’d made up my mind I couldn’t see no good reason for continuin’ to sit there ‘n’ draw frost out o’ granite ‘n’ into my shoulder-blades jus’ for the looks o’ the thing.”