Their tablecloth here was coarse, but clean, and a generous management supplied several sauces, a thick china bowl of crackers, a plate heaped with bread, salty yellow butter, and saucers of boiled shrimps with which guests might occupy themselves until the arrival of the oysters. Presently the main dish arrived, some forty small, brown, buttery oysters on each smoking hot plate. No pretense was necessary at this meal, there was enough, and more than enough. Susan's cheeks would burn rosily all afternoon. She and Thorny departing never tailed to remark, "How can they do it for twenty- five cents?" and sometimes spent the walk back to the office in a careful calculation of exactly what the meal had cost the proprietor.
"Did he send you a Christmas present?" asked Thorny one January day, when an irregular bill had brought her to Susan's desk.
"Who? Oh, Mr. Coleman?" Susan looked up innocently. "Yes, yes indeed he did. A lovely silver bureau set. Auntie was in two minds about letting me keep it." She studied the bill. "Well, that's the regular H. B. & H. Talcum Powder," she said, "only he's made them a price on a dozen gross. Send it back, and have Mr. Phil O. K. it!"
"A silver set! You lucky kid! How many pieces?"
"Oh, everything. Even toilet-water bottles, and a hatpin holder. Gorgeous." Susan wrote "Mr. P. Hunter will please O. K." in the margin against the questioned sale.
"You take it pretty coolly, Sue," Miss Thornton said, curiously.
"It's cool weather, Thorny dear." Susan smiled, locked her firm young hands idly on her ledger, eyed Miss Thornton honestly. "How should I take it?" said she.
The silver set had filled all Mrs. Lancaster's house with awed admiration on Christmas Day, but Susan could not forget that Peter had been out of town on both holidays, and that she had gained her only knowledge of his whereabouts from the newspapers. A handsome present had been more than enough to satisfy her wildest dreams, the year before. It was not enough now.
"S'listen, Susan. You're engaged to him?"
"Honestly,--cross my heart!--I'm not."
"But you will be when he asks you?"
"Thorny, aren't you awful!" Susan laughed; colored brilliantly.
"Well, WOULDN'T you?" the other persisted.
"I don't suppose one thinks of those things until they actually happen," Susan said slowly, wrinkling a thoughtful forehead. Thorny watched her for a moment with keen interest, then her own face softened suddenly.