There was no one at the windows, unfortunately, to be edified by the sight of Susan Brown being driven home in a private carriage, and the halls, as she entered, reeked of boiling cabbage and corned beef.  She groped in the darkness for a match with which to light the hall gas.  She could hear Loretta Barker’s sweet high voice chattering on behind closed doors, and, higher up, the deep moaning of Mary Lord, who was going through one of her bad times.  But she met nobody as she ran up to her room.

“Hello, Mary Lou, darling!  Where’s everyone?” she asked gaily, discerning in the darkness a portly form prone on the bed.

“Jinny’s lying down, she’s been to the oculist.  Ma’s in the kitchen--don’t light up, Sue,” said the patient, melancholy voice.

“Don’t light up!” Susan echoed, amazedly, instantly doing so, the better to see her cousin’s tear-reddened eyes and pale face.  “Why, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, we’ve had sad, sad news,” faltered Mary Lou, her lips trembling.  “A telegram from Ferd Eastman.  They’ve lost Robbie!”

“No!” said Susan, genuinely shocked.  And to the details she listened sympathetically, cheering Mary Lou while she inserted cuff-links into her cousin’s fresh shirtwaist, and persuaded her to come down to dinner.  Then Susan must leave her hot soup while she ran up to Virginia’s room, for Virginia was late.

“Ha!  What is it?” said Virginia heavily, rousing herself from sleep.  Protesting that she was a perfect fright, she kept Susan waiting while she arranged her hair.

“And what does Verriker say of your eyes, Jinny?”

“Oh, they may operate, after all!” Virginia sighed.  “But don’t say anything to Ma until we’re sure,” she said.

Not the congenial atmosphere into which to bring a singing heart!  Susan sighed.  When they went downstairs Mrs. Parker’s heavy voice was filling the dining-room.

“The world needs good wives and mothers more than it needs nuns, my dear!  There’s nothing selfish about a woman who takes her share of toil and care and worry, instead of running away from it.  Dear me! many of us who married and stayed in the world would be glad enough to change places with the placid lives of the Sisters!”

“Then, Mama,” Loretta said sweetly and merrily, detecting the inconsistency of her mother’s argument, as she always did, “if it’s such a serene, happy life—­”

Loretta always carried off the honors of war.  Susan used to wonder how Mrs. Parker could resist the temptation to slap her pretty, stupid little face.  Loretta’s deep, wise, mysterious smile seemed to imply that she, at nineteen, could afford to assume the maternal attitude toward her easily confused and disturbed parent.

“No vocation for mine!” said Georgianna, hardily, “I’d always be getting my habit mixed up, and coming into chapel without my veil on!”

This, because of its audacity, made everyone laugh, but Loretta fixed on Georgie the sweet bright smile in which Susan already perceived the nun.