she was indignant to
find that her only surviving relation, a sister-in-law, living in the
same place, had for a money consideration given up all claim to the
orphaned Susy, and how she had resolved to find out "if the poor child
was happy." How she succeeded in finding out that she was not happy.
How she wrote to her, and even met her secretly at San Francisco and
Oakland, and how she had undertaken this journey partly for "a lark,"
and partly to see Clarence and the property. There was no doubt of the
speaker's sincerity; with this outrageous candor there was an equal
obliviousness of any indelicacy in her conduct towards Mrs. Peyton that
seemed hopeless. Yet he must talk plainly to her; he must say to her
what he could not say to Susy; upon HER Mrs. Peyton's happiness--he
believed he was thinking of Susy's also--depended. He must take the
first opportunity of speaking to her alone.

That opportunity came sooner than he had expected. After dinner, Mrs.
McClosky turned to Susy, and playfully telling her that she had "to talk
business" with Mr. Brant, bade her go to the salon and await her. When
the young girl left the room, she looked at Clarence, and, with that
assumption of curtness with which coarse but kindly natures believe they
overcome the difficulty of delicate subjects, said abruptly:--

"Well, young man, now what's all this between you and Susy? I'm looking
after her interests--same as if she was my own girl. If you've got
anything to say, now's your time. And don't you shilly-shally too long
over it, either, for you might as well know that a girl like that can
have her pick and choice, and be beholden to no one; and when she don't
care to choose, there's me and my husband ready to do for her all the
same. We mightn't be able to do the anteek Spanish Squire, but we've got
our own line of business, and it's a comfortable one."

To have this said to him under the roof of Mrs. Peyton, from whom, in
his sensitiveness, he had thus far jealously guarded his own secret, was
even more than Clarence's gentleness could stand, and fixed his wavering
resolution.

"I don't think we quite understand each other, Mrs. McClosky," he said
coldly, but with glittering eyes. "I have certainly something to say to
you; if it is not on a subject as pleasant as the one you propose,
it is, nevertheless, one that I think you and I are more competent to
discuss together."

Then, with quiet but unrelenting directness, he pointed out