"Harkee, Susan wench!" said he, "do 'ee smell asparagus?"
"Aye. It'll be asparagus, Gaffer," said Susan dispiritedly, dropping into her chair.
"And I nearly got my dinner out to-night!" Billy said, with a shudder. "Say, listen, Susan, can you come over to the Carrolls, Sunday? Going to be a bully walk!"
"I don't know, Billy," she said quietly.
"Well, listen what we're all going to do, some Thursday. We're going to the theater, and then dawdle over supper at some cheap place, you know, and then go down on the docks, at about three, to see the fishing fleet come in? Are you on? It's great. They pile the fish up to their waists, you know--"
"That sounds lovely!" said Susan, eying him scornfully. "I see Jo and Anna Carroll enjoying THAT!"
"Lord, what a grouch you've got!" Billy said, with a sort of awed admiration.
Susan began to mold the damp salt in an open glass salt-cellar with the handle of a fork. Her eyes blurred with sudden tears.
"What's the matter?" Billy asked in a lowered voice.
She gulped, merely shook her head.
"You're dead, aren't you?" he said repentantly.
"Oh, all in!" It was a relief to ascribe it to that. "I'm awfully tired."
"Too tired to go to church with Mary Lou and me, dear?" asked Virginia, coming in. "Friday in Passion Week, you know. We're going to St, Ignatius. But if you're dead--?"
"Oh, I am. I'm going straight to bed," Susan said. But after dinner, when Mary Lou was dressing, she suddenly changed her mind, dragged herself up from the couch where she was lying and, being Susan, brushed her hair, pinned a rose on her coat lapel, and powdered her nose. Walking down the street with her two cousins, Susan, storm- shaken and subdued, still felt "good," and liked the feeling. Spring was in the air, the early darkness was sweet with the odors of grass and flowers.
When they reached the church, the great edifice was throbbing with the notes of the organ, a careless voluntary that stopped short, rambled, began again. They were early, and the lights were only lighted here and there; women, and now and then a man, drifted up the center aisle. Boots cheeped unseen in the arches, sibilant whispers smote the silence, pew-doors creaked, and from far corners of the church violent coughing sounded with muffled reverberations. Mary Lou would have slipped into the very last pew, but Virginia led the way up--up--up--in the darkness, nearer and nearer the altar, with its winking red light, and genuflected before one of the very first pews. Susan followed her into it with a sigh of satisfaction; she liked to see and hear, and all the pews were open to-night. They knelt for awhile, then sat back, silent, reverential, but not praying, and interested in the arriving congregation.