the edge of the world and me after him with a net, and when I do find out, I'll get even about that, too. Me with a net! I'd like to see myself skipping after any man that was skipping away from me. If he was skipping toward me, I wouldn't marry him – not 'nless I loved him. I know that. Love is a thing as you can't raise and lower just as the fancy strikes you. A woman can't love but once, and I've got a kind of warm bubbling all around my heart as tells me that I've loved that once and that it was Jathrop. It's very strange, Mrs. Lathrop, but I've been thinking of Jathrop a great deal lately. I keep remembering more and more how much I've been thinking about him. I suppose he was thinking of me, and that's what started me. 'How's Susan Clegg?' I can just seem to hear Jathrop's voice; Jathrop had a very strange voice. 'How's Susan Clegg?'
"The mind is a curious thing, when you stop to consider, Mrs. Lathrop. Mrs. Brown says Amelia says minds can communicate if you know how. Mrs. Brown says if she calls to Amelia when she's in the hammock and Amelia don't answer, Amelia always explains afterwards as she was communicating.
"It all shows that the mind is a wonderful thing. There was Jathrop and me communicating regularly, and me so little understanding what it all meant that I dreamed he was a cat. I can't get over that dream. I wonder if that meant that he's got whiskers now. If he's got whiskers, and he loves me, he's got to cut 'em right straight off. You'll have to speak to him about that as soon as you see him, Mrs. Lathrop, for I won't be able to, of course. And you can see for yourself that I couldn't have whiskers around. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I've had no experience with whiskers."
Mrs. Lathrop promised to remonstrate with Jathrop if he really had whiskers, and after some further conversation Susan went home and to bed and slept soundly. In the morning she was up very promptly, and Mrs. Lathrop saw her off for the station.
The whole town was at the station. But in front of them all – closest to the track – stood Susan Clegg.
It was a breathless moment when Johnny ran out with the flag and the train stopped. Susan motioned the rest back with dignity and stood her ground alone. The car door opened, and a stout, homely man, with eyes set wide apart and a very large mouth, appeared on the platform. He was well dressed and carried an alligator-skin traveling-bag.
Everybody gasped. But it was not his appearance nor the alligator-skin bag that caused them to gasp. It was that Jathrop Lathrop, returning after his long absence, had brought back a lady with him.
II
SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY
And not merely a lady, but a Chinese lady at that. A particularly chubby, solemn, Chinese lady, who descended from the train which brought Jathrop Lathrop back to his native town after making a fortune in the Klondike, and meekly trotted along in his wake, carrying the large valise, while Jathrop carried the small one.
Susan walked off straightway with Jathrop and the Chinese lady, while the town remained stock and staring behind. The town was frankly "done did up." That Jathrop might return with a wife had never once entered the head of any one. Still less had the idea of any one of that community ever wedding a Chinese been entertained. It was a peculiarly overwhelming sensation, and one which led Gran'ma Mullins to lean against Hiram, while Mrs. Macy leaned against the equally firm side-wall of the station itself. It was several seconds before people came to their senses enough to go around by the track gate and look to see how far the bewildering party had got on their way. They were just crossing the square.
"Well, if that doesn't beat the Dutch," said Mr. Kimball, and his words seemed to break the deadlock; everybody scattered forthwith, all talking at once.
Meanwhile Jathrop, arriving at his mother's gate, paused and said quite easily:
"I'll go in alone, Susan; mother will like the first hour or so quite alone with me, I know. Won't you take Hop Loo to your house for breakfast?"
Susan, who had by no means as yet recovered from the shock of the Celestial bride, opened and shut her mouth once and her eyes twice, and yielded. For the nonce she seemed as speechless as Mrs. Lathrop herself. Jathrop's appealing ease of manner had overawed her all the way up from the station, and the walk had been accomplished in stately silence. If the Klondike Prodigal had been surprised over the alteration in Susan, he had not said so, and now he quietly handed Hop Loo his alligator-skin traveling-bag (or hers, whichever it was), and passing in through his mother's gate, shut it forthwith behind him, and went on up the walk. Susan cast one look, which would have thrown a basilisk into everlasting darkness, after him; and then, turning, marched back to her own gate. Hop Loo followed, Susan opened her own gate and passed through it; Hop Loo passed through after her. Susan went up her walk; Hop kept close to her heels. Together they mounted the steps and then entered the house.
It was all of half an hour before Mrs. Macy, the first completely to rally from the shock at the station, arrived to call. When she climbed the steps and rang the bell, Susan came to the door at once. She looked peculiarly grim and smileless. It was plain to be seen at the present moment that she was not pleased with the world in general.
"I thought I'd just come up for a little," began Mrs. Macy, smiling enough for two all alone by herself. Mrs. Macy always tried to keep up her own spirits in a laudable attempt, possibly, to heighten those of others. "I thought maybe you'd be glad to see a face you knew."
This allusion to the Chinese lady was not intended as unkindly as it might have been in better society, Mrs. Macy being wholly incapable of anything so subtle.
"Sit down," said Susan, briefly, indicating a porch chair. "There's no use taking you in; she's up-stairs unpacking, and she's already set about doing his cooking. It's plain to be seen that Jathrop Lathrop never come all this way from the Klondike to take any chances of being poisoned by me as soon as he got here. No, sir, Jathrop Lathrop has learned too many little tricks for that."
Susan's tone was extremely bitter. She had removed the famous striped silk and applied her hairbrush to both sides of her head after dipping it (the hairbrush, not her head) in water. It was easy to be seen that the vanities of this life had suddenly become offensive in her nostrils.
"Do you suppose she's really his wife?" asked Mrs. Macy, seating herself and looking eagerly in her friend's face.
"Oh, yes, she's his wife," said Susan.
"Oh, Susan," Mrs. Macy went on, her eyes becoming quite globular under the severe stress of her curiosity, "do you suppose anybody married 'em, or did he just buy her for beads?"
"I don't know," said Susan, rocking severely back and forth, "I don't know a tall. You must ask some one wiser than me what a white man does about a Chinese when he wants her to cook for him. You ought to have seen her in my kitchen, Mrs. Macy; she walked straight to my rack of pans and took down just whatever she fancied. I never saw the beat! No, nor nobody else. She's learned how to be cool from Jathrop and the North Pole together, looks to me. I never see such ways as Jathrop has picked up. He never said a word walking up – nothing but 'Ah' once. I don't call 'Ah' once much of a conversation for the woman as rocked your cradle and might have married you, too – if she'd wanted to. For I could have married Jathrop Lathrop, Mrs. Macy; nobody but me will ever know what passed between us, but I could have married him. I won't say what prevented, but I can tell you it wasn't him. And he's lived to regret it, too. Just like the minister regrets it. When the minister speaks of the treasure that layeth up in heaven, he doesn't mean no chicken – he means me."
Susan paused and shook her head angrily.
"I don't doubt but what he's sorry," said Mrs. Macy; "maybe he married a Chinese for fear any other kind would remind him of you."
Miss Clegg rejected this possible poetic view of Jathrop's action with a look of great disgust accompanied
