"Ah yes, Miss!" she said, "I really do think that I take as much interest in other peoples' sorrows as in my own."
"As a true Christian should," replied Susan, biting her lips to conceal the smile she could scarcely keep down. "I noticed how feelingly you spoke about that poor lady who had the baby the other day—the doctor's wife—Mrs. Duncan I think her name was. How is she getting on now, by the way, Mrs. Harris—have you heard?"
"Poor thing! Poor thing!" said the old lady in a lackadaisical voice, putting on a very solemn expression and shaking her corkscrew curls again.
"Is she worse then?" asked Susan.
"No, no! It is not that—at least not exactly that. I believe that her confinement has passed by in a very satisfactory way; but—" and she shook her head yet once again in a mysterious fashion.
"I do not quite understand you," observed Susan.
"If I were a gossip, which I am glad to say I am not," spoke up Mrs. Harris in deliberate tones, "I might say strange things about that house."
"Good gracious! what do you mean?"
"Her husband is a popular man hereabouts it is true—but—" and Mrs. Harris shut her mouth with a snap, as if determined to say no more.