“Still, I wouldn’t envy anyone whose home life wasn’t preferable to the hospital, Sue.”

“Well, Emily is queer, Aunt Jo.  But in her place I wouldn’t necessarily be queer.”

“At the same time, considering her brother Kenneth’s rather checkered career, and the fact that her big sister neglects and ignores her, and that her health is really very delicate, I don’t consider Emily a happy choice for your argument, Sue.”

“Well, there’s Peggy Brock.  She’s a perfect beauty—–­”

“She’s a Wellington, Sue.  You know that stock.  How many of them are already in institutions?”

“Oh, but Aunt Jo!” Susan said impatiently, “there are dozens of girls in society whose health is good, and whose family isn’t insane,—­I don’t know why I chose those two!  There are the Chickerings—–­”

“Whose father took his own life, Sue.”

“Well, they couldn’t help that.  They’re lovely girls.  It was some money trouble, it wasn’t insanity or drink.”

“But think a moment, Sue.  Wouldn’t it haunt you for a long, long time, if you felt that your own father, coming home to that gorgeous house night after night, had been slowly driven to the taking of his own life?”

Susan looked thoughtful.

“I never thought of that,” she admitted.  Presently she added brightly, “There are the Ward girls, Aunt Jo, and Isabel Wallace.  You couldn’t find three prettier or richer or nicer girls!  Say what you will,” Susan returned undauntedly to her first argument, “life is easier for those girls than for the rest of us!”

“Well, I want to call your attention to those three,” Mrs. Carroll said, after a moment.  “Both Mr. Wallace and Mr. Ward made their own money, started in with nothing and built up their own fortunes.  Phil may do that, or Billy may do that—­we can’t tell.  Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Wallace are both nice, simple women, not spoiled yet by money, not inflated on the subject of family and position, bringing up their families as they were brought up.  I don’t know Mrs. Ward personally, but Mrs. Wallace came from my own town, and she likes to remember the time when her husband was only a mining engineer, and she did her own work.  You may not see it, Sue, but there’s a great difference there.  Such people are happy and useful, and they hand happiness on.  Peter Coleman’s another, he’s so exceptionally nice because he’s only one generation removed from working people.  If Isabel Wallace,—­and she’s very young; life may be unhappy enough for her yet, poor child!—­marries a man like her father, well and good.  But if she marries a man like—­well, say Kenneth Saunders or young Gerald, she simply enters into the ranks of the idle and useless and unhappy, that’s all.”

“She’s beautiful, and she’s smart too,” Susan pursued, disconsolately, “Emily and I lunched there one day and she was simply sweet to the maids, and to her mother.  And German!  I wish you could hear her.  She may not be of any very remarkable family but she certainly is an exceptional girl!”