“You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, coming abruptly in. “Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry. Susan is at the helm. There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking. I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning.”
“Indeed you are not,” laughed Anne. “I agree with Miss Cornelia that it’s a scandal for a woman who isn’t sick to eat her breakfast in bed, and almost justifies the men in any enormities.”
“Oh, Cornelia!” said Susan, with ineffable contempt. “I think you have better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryant says. I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even if she is an old maid. I am an old maid, but you never hear ME abusing the men. I like ’em. I would have married one if I could. Is it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear? I am no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women you see. But I never had a beau. What do you suppose is the reason?”
“It may be predestination,” suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity.
Susan nodded.
“That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and a great comfort it is. I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreed it so for His own wise purposes. But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has not more to do with it than anyone else. I cannot feel resigned THEN. But maybe,” added Susan, brightening up, “I will have a chance to get married yet. I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat:
There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late
Some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate!
A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies. I notice the doctor favors ’em, and I DO like cooking for a man who appreciates his victuals.”
Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
“I don’t mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh DOES rather bother me,” she admitted. “You always look as cool as a cucumber, Anne, dearie. Do I smell cherry pie? If I do, ask me to stay to tea. Haven’t tasted a cherry pie this summer. My cherries have all been stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen.”