Suzanna, arranging the pantry the next morning, sought her mother upstairs with a domestic announcement.
"The vinegar bottle is empty," she said.
"And the gherkins all ready," cried Mrs. Procter. "Will you run over to Mrs. Reynolds and ask her for some vinegar, Suzanna?"
Listlessly, Suzanna returned downstairs, and from the pantry procured a cup. Slowly she left the house, walked down the front path and across the road to Mrs. Reynolds' home. Arrived there, she went round to the back door and knocked with slack knuckles.
Mrs. Reynolds, a white cloth tied about her forehead, opened the door. She gave out redolently the pungent odor of the commodity Suzanna sought to borrow.
Mrs. Reynolds was stout and comfortable looking ordinarily. A quaint and interesting personality, sprung from Welsh parentage, she fitted into the life of Anchorville only because of a certain natural adaptability. She seemed to belong to a wilder, more passionate people than those plain lives which surrounded her.
Suzanna knew her tenderness, her tragic depressions. She loved her deep voice, her resonant tones, all her quick changes of mood, and her occasional strange ways of expression, revealing her understanding of men and women's vagaries.
Mrs. Reynolds adored Suzanna. She had said often there was one thing she coveted from her neighbor, and that was her neighbor's child.
Mrs. Reynolds had no children and in that deplorable fact lay her keenest unhappiness.
She greeted Suzanna cordially.