"
"Do--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, I think he 'll try to," said Miss Clegg, "but his other wife may
not see it in the same spirit, Mrs. Ely not bein' no great ornament, 'n'
the farm is safe now anyhow."
"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop, further.
"Yes," said Susan, "I thought so myself but it did n't seem to strike
him that way."
* * * * *
THE WOLF AT SUSAN'S DOOR
PART FIRST
MISS CLEGG'S SPECULATIONS
Mrs. Lathrop, rocking placidly in her kitchen window, was conscious of a
vague sense of worry as to her friend over the fence. It appeared to her
that Susan was looking more thin and peaked than nature had intended. It
is true that Miss Clegg was always of a bony and nervous outline, but it
seemed slowly but surely borne in upon her older friend that of late she
had been rapidly becoming sharper in every way. Mrs. Lathrop felt that
she ought to speak--that she ought not to lead her next door neighbor
into the false belief that her sufferings were unnoticed by the
affectionate spectacles forever turned her way,--and yet--Mrs. Lathrop
being Mrs. Lathrop--it was only after several days of rocking and
cogitation that the verbal die came to its casting.
That came to be upon a summer evening, and it came to pass across the
barrier-fence where Miss Clegg had come to lean wearily, her shoulders
and the corners of her mouth following the same dejected angle, while
her elderly friend stood facing her with a gaze that was at once
earnest, penetrating, and commiserating, and a clover blossom in her
mouth.
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