"Them be nice letters he writes, I'm free to confess," commented Susan graciously. "Not that they tell so much what he's doin', though; but I s'pose they're censured, anyhow—all them letters be."
Mrs. McGuire, her eyes dreamily fixed out the window, nodded her head slowly.
"Yes, I s'pose so; but there's a lot left—there's always a lot left. And everything he writes I can just see. It was always like that with my John. Let him go downtown an' come back—you'd think he'd been to the circus, the wonderful things he'd tell me he'd seen on the way. An' he'd set 'em out an' describe 'em until I could just see 'em myself! I'll never forget. One day he went to a fire. The old Babcock house burned, an' he saw it. He was twelve years old. I was sick in bed, an' he told me about it. I can see him now, standin' at the foot of the bed, his cheeks red, his eyes sparklin' an' his little hands flourishin' right an' left in his excitement. As he talked, I could just see that old house burn. I could hear the shouts of the men, the roar an' cracklin' of the flames, an' see 'em creepin', creepin', gainin', gainin'-! Oh, it was wonderful—an' there I was right in my own bed, all the time. It was just the way he told it. That's why I know he could have been a writer. He could make others see—everything. But now—that's all over now. He'll never be—anything. I can see him. I can see all that horrible battle-field with the reelin' men, the flames, the smoke, the burstin' shells, an', oh, God—my John! Will he ever, ever come back—to me?"
"There, there, Mis' McGuire, I jest wouldn't—" But Mrs. McGuire, with a shake of her head, and her eyes half covered with her hand, turned away and stumbled out of the kitchen.
Susan, looking after her, drew a long sigh.
"Worry never climbed a hill,
Worry never—
There's some times when it's frank impertinence to tell folks not to worry," she muttered severely to herself, attacking the piled-up dishes before her.
Daniel Burton went to work in McGuire's grocery store the next morning, after a particularly appetizing breakfast served to him by a silent, red-eyed, but very attentive Susan.
"An' 'twas for all the world like a lamb to the slaughter-house," Susan moaned to the law-student lodger when she met him on the stairs at eight o'clock that morning. "An' if you want to see a real slaughter-house, you jest come in here," she beckoned him, leading the way to the studio.
"But—but—that is—well—" stammered the young fellow, looking not a little startled as he followed her, with half-reluctant feet.