first an'
visit the Zooelogical Gardens after. Well, she says, maybe you can judge
of their feelin's when they was waitin' all smiles an' sunshine for
their train, with a nice lunch done up under John's arm, an' he got down
from the other train without no preparation a _tall_. She said she done
all she could under the circumstances, for she burst out cryin' in spite
of herself, an' cryin' is somethin' as always fits in handy anywhere,
an' then she says they had nothin' in the wide world to do but to go
home an' explain away the hard-boiled eggs for dinner the best they
could. She says she hopes the Lord'll forgive her for He knows better
than she ever will what she ever done to have Mr. Fisher awarded to her
as her just and lawful punishment these last five and twenty years; an',
she says, will you only think how awful easy, as long as he got on the
table of his own free will an' without her even puttin' him up to it, it
would have been for him to of rocked off an' goodness knows what. She
says she is a Christian, an' she don't wish even her husband any ill
wind, but she did frighten me, Mrs. Lathrop, an' I wanted to speak out
frank an' open to you about it because a man in the house _is_ a man in
the house, an' I want to take men into very careful consideration before
I go a step further towards lettin one have the right to darken my doors
whenever he comes home to bed an' board--"

Mrs. Lathrop quite jumped in her chair at this startling finale to her
neighbor's talk and her little black eyes gleamed brightly.

"Bed and bo--" she cried.

"He'll have father's room, if I take him, of course," said Susan, "but I
ain't sure yet that I'll take him. You know all I stood with father,
Mrs. Lathrop, an' I don't really know as I can stand any more sad
memories connected with that room. You know how it was with Jathrop
yourself, too, an' how happy and peaceful life has been since he lit
out, an' I ain't sure that--My heavens alive! I forgot to tell you that
Mr. Dill thought he saw Jathrop in the city when he was up there
yesterday!"

"Saw Ja--" screamed Mrs. Lathrop. Jathrop was her son who had fled from
the town some years before, his departure being marked by peculiarly
harrowing circumstances, and of whom or from whom she had never heard
one word since.

"Mr. Dill was n't sure," said Susan; "he said the more he thought about
it the more sure he was that he was n 't sure a _tall_. He saw the man
in a seed-office where he