“But, Peter, is there really something in it?” asked Susan, on the boat.

“Well,—­there might be.  Anyway, it seemed a good chance to give them a lift, don’t you know?” he said, with his ingenuous blush.  Susan loved him for the generous impulse.  She had sometimes fancied him a little indifferent to the sufferings of the less fortunate, proof of the contrary warmed her to the very heart!  She had been distressed one day to hear him gaily telling George Banks, the salesman who was coughing himself to death despite the frantic care of his wife, a story of a consumptive, and, on another occasion, when a shawled, shabby woman had come up to them in the street, with the whined story of five little hungry children, Susan had been shocked to hear Peter say, with his irrepressible gaiety, “Well, here!  Here’s five cents; that’s a cent apiece!  Now mind you don’t waste it!”

She told herself to-night that these things proved no more than want of thought.  There was nothing wrong with the heart that could plan so tactfully for Mrs. Carroll.

On the following Saturday Susan had the unexpected experience of shopping with Mrs. Lancaster and Georgie for the latter’s trousseau.  It was unlike any shopping that they had ever done before, inasmuch as the doctor’s unclaimed bride had received from her lord the sum of three hundred dollars for the purpose.  Georgie denied firmly that she was going to start with her husband for the convention at Del Monte that evening, but she went shopping nevertheless.  Perhaps she could not really resist the lure of the shining heap of gold pieces.  She became deeply excited and charmed over the buying of the pretty tailor-made, the silk house dresses, the hat and shoes and linen.  Georgie began to play the bride, was prettily indignant with clerks, pouted at silks and velvets.  Susan did not miss her cousin’s bright blush when certain things, a linen suit, underlinen, a waist or two, were taken from the mass of things to be sent, and put into Georgie’s suitcase.

“And you’re to have a silk waist, Ma, I insist.”

“Now, Baby love, this is your shopping.  And, more than that, I really need a pair of good corsets before I try on waists!”

“Then you’ll have both!” Mrs. Lancaster laughed helplessly as the bride carried her point.

At six o’clock the three met the doctor at the Vienna Bakery, for tea, and Georgie, quite lofty in her attitude when only her mother and cousin were to be impressed, seemed suddenly to lose her powers of speech.  She answered the doctor’s outline of his plans only by monosyllables.  “Yes,” “All right,” “That’s nice, Joe.”  Her face was burning red.

“But Ma—­Ma and I—­and Sue, too, don’t you, Sue?” she stammered presently.  “We think—­and don’t you think it would be as well, yourself, Joe, if I went back with Ma to-night—–­”

Susan, anxiously looking toward the doctor, at this, felt a little thrill run over her whole body at the sudden glimpse of the confident male she had in his reply,—­or rather, lack of reply.  For, after a vague, absent glance at Georgie, he took a time-table out of his pocket, and addressed his mother-in-law.