She was effusively welcomed by them. They had two small apartments in one of the numerous tenement buildings of Colon. Miss Proudleigh, although preferring dressmaking as a more genteel occupation, had become a private laundress, as more money could be made that way. She had hired a girl to help her; particularly, to go for and to take home the clothes, for that neither she nor Catherine would consent to do. Catherine assisted with the ironing. They were pleased to find that they earned four or five times as much at this work as they would have done in Jamaica. This almost compensated for the menial character of the work. Mr. Proudleigh discovered elements of dignity in it. His only contribution was gratuitous advice.
Catherine had news for Susan.
“Guess who I meet in Colon, Sue?” was her first remark, after Susan had taken off her hat.
“Jones!” said Susan instantly.
“He an’ Tom. Them tell me all about the row, an’ Jones come here sometimes during the day an’ in the evening. Him may come here to-day,” she concluded, with a glance at her sister to see how she took the news.
Susan felt her heart leap as Catherine mentioned the possibility of Jones’s calling at the house while she was there. But she affected indifference.
“I don’t want to see him,” she said; “but it won’t matter.”
“Of course not,” observed her aunt, “for you are a lawfully married woman now.”
“An’ nobody can take dat from you,” Mr. Proudleigh insisted, as though some attempt to rob Susan of her married state was not at all unlikely.
“Nobody need try,” laughed Susan, pluming herself upon being Mrs. Mackenzie; “I have me marriage certificate.”