"An' yet—" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"Oh, as to that," said Susan, "that's altogether another kind o' idiot. Henry Ward Beecher won't die of his love even if Emma won't have him, an' they'll both always be the better an' happier for not havin' one another, if they only knew it. It's mighty easy to love folks an' think how happy you'd always be with 'em as long as you don't marry 'em. It's marryin' 'em an' livin' in the house with 'em as shows you how hard it is to be really married. I thank Heaven I'm only livin' in the house with Elijah an' not married to him, so I can see my way ahead to gettin' rid of him in a little while now. You don't know how I ache to draw the curtains of his room an' pin up the bed an' pour the water out of his pitcher an' set a mouse trap in there an' just know it is n't goin' to be mussed up again."
Susan sighed deeply.
"How long—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"I said three months," said Miss Clegg, "an' that takes it over the Fourth of July. My heavens alive, seems some days as if I could n't but just live, an' the meanest thing about a man is, he's so dead sure as he makes you happy, bein' around the house."
CHAPTER XVII
AN OLD-FASHIONED FOURTH
"Well, Elijah seems to have hit the nail on its foot instead of its head this time," said Miss Clegg to Mrs. Lathrop on the noon of the Sunday before the Fourth of July; "that editorial of his in this week's paper ain't suitin' any one a tall. I was down in the square yesterday an' everybody as was there was talkin' about it, an' to-day after church everybody was still talkin' about it, an' gettin' more mad all the time."
"What—" began Mrs. Lathrop.