"I think I'm darned unlucky!" the girl declared seriously.
"Here--here! Descriptive adjectives!" called Lydia, but the others paid no heed.
"Sue, how can you say so!"
"Well, I admit, Miss Mary," Susan said with pretty gravity, "that God hasn't sent me what he has sent you to bear, for some inscrutable reason,--I'd go mad if He had! But I'm poor--"
"Now, look here," Mary said authoritatively. "You're young, aren't you? And you're good-looking, aren't you?"
"Don't mince matters, Miss Mary. Say beautiful," giggled Susan.
"I'm in earnest. You're the youngest and prettiest woman in this house. You have a good position, and good health, and no encumbrances--"
"I have a husband and three children in the Mission, Miss Mary. I never mentioned them--"
"Oh, behave yourself, Sue! Well! And, more than that, you have--we won't mention one special friend, because I don't want to make you blush, but at least a dozen good friends among the very richest people of society. You go to lunch with Miss Emily Saunders, and to Burlingame with Miss Ella Saunders, you get all sorts of handsome presents--isn't this all true?"
"Absolutely," said Susan so seriously, so sadly, that the invalid laid a bony cold one over the smooth brown one arrested on the "Halma" board.