“Oh, I would!” said Susan gratefully.  Lizzie presently brought in a tray, and arranged an appetizing little meal.

“They’re something awful, that’s what I say,” said Lizzie presently in a cautious undertone.  “But I’ve been here twelve years, and I say there’s worse places!  Miss Ella may be a little raspy now, Miss Brown, but don’t you take it to heart!” Susan, the better for hot coffee and human sympathy, laughed out in cheerful revulsion of feeling.

“Things are all mixed up, Lizzie, but it’s not my fault,” she said gaily.

“Well, it don’t matter,” said the literal Lizzie, referring to the tray.  “I pile ’em up anyhow to carry ’em downstairs!”

Breakfast over, Susan still loitered in her own apartments.  She wanted to see Stephen, but not enough to risk encountering someone else in the halls.  At about eleven o’clock, Ella knocked at the door, and came in.

“I’m in a horrible rush,” said Ella, sitting down on the bed and interesting herself immediately in a silk workbag of Emily’s that hung there.  “I only want to say this, Sue,” she began.  “It has nothing to do with what we were talking of this morning, but—­I’ve just been discussing it with Mamma!—­but we all feel, and I’m sure you do, too, that this is an upset sort of time.  Emily, now,” said Ella, reaching her sister’s name with obvious relief, “Em’s not at all well, and she feels that she needs a nurse,—­I’m going to try to get that nurse Betty Brock had,—­Em may have to go back to the hospital, in fact, and Mamma is so nervous about Ken, and I—–­” Ella cleared her throat, “I feel this way about it,” she said.  “When you came here it was just an experiment, wasn’t it?”

“Certainly,” Susan agreed, very red in the face.

“Certainly, and a most successful one, too,” Ella conceded relievedly.  “But, of course, if Mamma takes Baby abroad in the spring,—­you see how it is?  And of course, even in case of a change now, we’d want you to take your time.  Or,—­I’ll tell you, suppose you go home for a visit with your aunt, now.  Monday is Christmas, and then, after New Year’s, we can write about it, if you haven’t found anything else you want to do, and I’ll let you know—–­”

“I understand perfectly,” Susan said quietly, but with a betraying color.  “Certainly, I think that would be wisest.”

“Well, I think so,” said Ella with a long breath.  “Now, don’t be in a hurry, even if Miss Polk comes, because you could sleep upstairs—­ -”

“Oh, I’d rather go at once-to-day,” Susan said.

“Indeed not, in this rain,” Ella said with her pleasant, half-humorous air of concern.  “Mamma and Baby would think I’d scared you away.  Tomorrow, Sue, if you’re in such a hurry.  But this afternoon some people are coming in to meet Stephen—­he’s really going on Sunday, he says,—­stay and pour!”