“No, no,” he protested, “the Carrolls are the most extraordinary people in the world, Sue.  And then, anyway, you’re different—­you’ve learned.”

“Well, I’ve learned this,” she said, “There’s a great deal more happiness, everywhere, than one imagines.  Every baby brings whole tons of it, and roast chickens and apple-pies and new lamps and husbands coming home at night are making people happy all the time!  People are celebrating birthdays and moving into bigger houses, and having their married daughters home for visits, right straight along.  But when you pass a dark lower flat on a dirty street, somehow it doesn’t occur to you that the people who live in it are saving up for a home in the Western Addition!”

“Well, Sue, unhappiness is bad enough, when there’s a reason for it,” William said, “but when you’ve taken your philanthropy course, I wish you’d come out and demonstrate to the women at the Works that the only thing that keeps them from being happy and prosperous is not having the sense to know that they are!”

“I?  What could I ever teach anyone!” laughed Susan Brown.

Yet she was changing and learning, as she presently had reason to see.  It was on a hot Saturday in July that Susan, leaving the office at two o’clock, met the lovely Mrs. John Furlong on the shore road.  Even more gracious and charming than she had been as Isabel Wallace, the young matron quite took possession of Susan.  Where had Susan been hiding—­and how wonderfully well she was looking—­and why hadn’t she come to see Isabel’s new house?

“Be a darling!” said Mrs. Furlong, “and come along home with me now!  Jack is going to bring Sherwin Perry home to dinner with him, and I truly, truly need a girl!  Run up and change your dress if you want to, while I’m making my call, and meet me on the four o’clock train!”

Susan hesitated, filled with unreasoning dread of a plunge back into the old atmosphere, but in the end she did go up to change her dress,—­rejoicing that the new blue linen was finished, and did join Isabel at the train, filled with an absurd regret at having to miss a week-end at home, and Anna.

Isabel, very lovely in a remarkable gown and hat, chatted cheerfully all the way home, and led the guest to quite the smartest of the motor-cars that were waiting at the San Rafael station.  Susan was amazed—­a little saddened—­to find that the beautiful gowns and beautiful women and lovely homes had lost their appeal; to find herself analyzing even Isabel’s happy chatter with a dispassionate, quiet unbelief.

The new home proved to be very lovely; a harmonious mixture of all the sorts of doors and windows, porches and roofs that the young owners fancied.  Isabel, trailing her frothy laces across the cool deep hallway, had some pretty, matronly questions to ask of her butler, before she could feel free for her guest.  Had Mrs. Wallace telephoned—­had the man fixed the mirror in Mr. Furlong’s bathroom—­ had the wine come?