"But you don't think that the poor, as a class, are happier than the rich?"
"Why, of course they are!"
"Lots of workingmen's wives are unhappy," submitted Susan.
"Because they're idle and shiftless and selfish, Sue. But there are some among them who are so busy mixing up spice cake, and making school-aprons, and filling lamps and watering gardens that they can't stop to read the new magazines,--and those are the happiest people in the world, I think. No, little girl, remember that rule. Not money, or success, or position or travel or love makes happiness,--service is the secret."
Susan was watching her earnestly, wistfully. Now she asked simply: "Where can I serve?"
"Where can you serve--you blessed child!" Mrs. Carroll said, ending her little dissertation with a laugh. "Well, let me see--I've been thinking of you lately, Sue, and wondering why you never thought of settlement work? You'd be so splendid, with your good-nature, and your buoyancy, and your love for children. Of course they don't pay much, but money isn't your object, is it?"
"No-o, I suppose it isn't," Susan said uncertainly. "I--I don't see why it should be!" And she seemed to feel her horizon broadening as she spoke.
She and Billy did not leave until ten o'clock, fare-wells, as always, were hurried, but Josephine found time to ask Susan to be her bridesmaid, Betsey pleaded for a long visit after the wedding, "we'll simply die without Jo!" and Anna, with her serious kiss, whispered, "Stand by us, Sue--it's going to break Mother's heart to have her go so far away!"
Susan could speak of nothing but Josephine's happiness for awhile, when she and Billy were on the boat. They had the dark upper deck almost to themselves, lights twinkled everywhere about them, on the black waters of the bay. There was no moon. She presently managed a delicately tentative touch upon his own feeling in the matter. "He-- he was glad, wasn't he? He hadn't been seriously hurt?"
Bill, catching her drift, laughed out joyously.
"That's so--I was crazy about her once, wasn't I?" Billy asked, smilingly reminiscent. "But I like Anna better now. Only I've sort of thought sometimes that Anna has a crush on someone--Peter Coleman, maybe."
"No, not on him," Susan hesitated. "There's a doctor at the hospital, but he's awfully rich and important---" she admitted.
"Oh." Billy withdrew. "And you--are you still crazy about that mutt?" he asked.