"He is dead."
"Ach—mine also."
"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands—a trick of hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you wrote."
"None," said the baroness with a rigid look.
"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me."
"You are very good."
"Oh, I am not good, only so happy—I have everything in the world that I have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all there is nothing more I can think of that I want."
"Ach," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or cousins, who would come and stay with you?"
"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they wouldn't like staying here with me at all."
"They would not like staying with you? How strange."