“She told me that when she got home, and saw the way that you have changed things,” confided Betsey, “she began to think for the first time that we might—­might get through this, you know!”

Wonderful days for Susan followed, with every hour brimming full of working and planning.  She was the first one up in the morning, the last one in bed at night, hers was the voice that made the last decision, and hers the hands for which the most critical of the household tasks were reserved.  Always conscious of the vacant place in their circle, and always aware of the presence of that brooding and silent figure upstairs, she was nevertheless so happy sometimes as to think herself a hypocrite and heartless.  But long afterward Susan knew that the sense of dramatic fitness and abiding satisfaction is always the reward of untiring and loving service.

She and Betsey read together, walked through the rain to market, and came back glowing and tired, to dry their shoes and coats at the kitchen fire.  They cooked and swept and dusted, tried the furniture in new positions, sent Jimmy to the White House for a special new pattern, and experimented with house-dresses.  Susan heard the first real laughter in months ring out at the dinner-table, when she and Betsey described their experiences with a crab, who had revived while being carried home in their market-basket.  Jimmy, silent, rough-headed and sweet, followed Susan about like an affectionate terrier, and there was another laugh when Jimmy, finishing a bowl in which cake had been mixed, remarked fervently, “Gosh, why do you waste time cooking it?”

In the evening they played euchre, or hearts, or parchesi; Susan and Philip struggled with chess; there were talks about the fire, and they all straggled upstairs at ten o’clock.  Anna, appreciative and affectionate and brave, came home for almost every Saturday night, and these were special occasions.  Susan and Betsey wasted their best efforts upon the dinner, and filled the vases with flowers and ferns, and Philip brought home candy and the new magazines.  It was Anna who could talk longest with the isolated mother, and Susan and she went over every word, afterwards, eager to find a ray of hope.

“I told her about to-day,” Anna said one Saturday night, brushing her long hair, “and about Billy’s walking with us to the ridge.  Now, when you go in tomorrow, Betsey, I wish you’d begin about Christmas.  Just say, ’Mother, do you realize that Christmas is a week from to-morrow?’ and then, if you can, just go right on boldly and say, ‘Mother, you won’t spoil it for us all by not coming downstairs?’”

Betsey looked extremely nervous at this suggestion, and Susan slowly shook her head.  She knew how hopeless the plan was.  She and Betsey realized even better than the absent Anna how rooted was Mrs. Carroll’s unhappy state.  Now and then, on a clear day, the mother would be heard going softly downstairs for a few moments in the garden; now and then at the sound of luncheon preparations downstairs she would come out to call down, “No lunch for me, thank you, girls!” Otherwise they never saw her except sitting idle, black-clad, in her rocking-chair.