In the autumn Susan went home for a week, for the Lancaster family was convulsed by the prospect of Alfie's marriage to a little nobody whose father kept a large bakery in the Mission, and Susan was needed to brace Alfred's mother for the blow. Mary Lou's old admirer and his little, invalid wife, were staying at the house now, and Susan found "Ferd" a sad blow to her old romantic vision of him: a stout, little, ruddy-cheeked man, too brilliantly dressed, with hair turning gray, and an offensive habit of attacking the idle rich for Susan's benefit, and dilating upon his own business successes. Georgie came over to spend a night in the old home while Susan was there, carrying the heavy, lumpy baby. Myra was teething now, cross and unmanageable, and Georgie was worried because a barley preparation did not seem to agree with her, and Joe disapproved of patent foods. Joe hoped that the new baby--Susan widened her eyes.
Oh, yes, in May, Georgie announced simply, and with a tired sigh,-- Joe hoped the new baby would be a boy. She herself hoped for a little girl, wouldn't it be sweet to call it May? Georgie looked badly, and if she did not exactly break down and cry during her visit, Susan felt that tears were always close behind her eyes.
Billy, beside her somewhat lachrymose aunt and cousins, shone out, during this visit, as Susan had never known him to do before. He looked splendidly big and strong and well, well groomed and erect in carriage, and she liked the little compliment he paid her in postponing the German lesson that should have filled the evening, and dressing himself in his best to take her to the Orpheum. Susan returned it by wearing her prettiest gown and hat. They set out in great spirits, Susan chattering steadily, in the relief it was to speak her mind honestly, and Billy listening, and now and then shouting out in the laughter that never failed her spirited narratives.
He told her of the Carrolls,--all good news, for Anna had been offered a fine position as assistant matron in one of the best of the city's surgical hospitals; Betts had sold a story to the Argonaut for twelve dollars, and Philip was going steadily ahead; "you wouldn't believe he was the same fellow!" said Billy. Jimmy and Betts and their mother were to go up in a few days for a fortnight's holiday in the little shooting-box that some Eastern friends had built years ago in the Humboldt woods. The owners had left the key with Mrs. Carroll, and she might use the little cabin as much as she liked.