‘Won’t you have a cup of tea, Aunt Jemima?’ asks Susan timidly.
‘No, thank you, my love. Pray don’t trouble about me. I’—with a crushing glance at poor Susan—‘have no desire whatever to interfere with your amusement. I hope’—turning to Crosby—‘later on I may be able to see more of you, but to-day I am specially busy. I have many worries, Mr. Crosby, that are not exactly on the surface.’
‘Like us all,’ says Crosby, nodding his head gravely. ‘Life is full of thorns.’
‘Ah!’ says Miss Barry. She feels that she has now ‘impressed’ him indeed, and is satisfied.
‘We travel a thorny road,’ says she.
Crosby sadly acquiesces.
‘True,’ says he.
‘Adieu,’ says she. She makes him an old-fashioned obeisance, and once again rounds the corner and disappears.
‘I don’t think it was very nice of you to make fun of her,’ says Susan reproachfully to Crosby.
‘Fun of her! What do you take me for?’ says he. ‘Make fun of your aunt because I said life was full of thorns? Well’—with argument looming in his eye—‘isn’t it?’