Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs   By: Anne Warner (1869-1913)

AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS

BY ANNE WARNER

Author of "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," "Sunshine Jane," etc.

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY H. M. BRETT

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1916

Copyright, 1916 ,

BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

All rights reserved

Published, May, 1916 Reprinted, May, 1916

[Illustration: "Nothing but the floor stopped me from falling through to China." FRONTISPIECE. See Page 144. ]

CONTENTS

I. SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING 1

II. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY 32

III. SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY 58

IV. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE OLIVE BRANCH 80

V. SUSAN CLEGG'S "IMPROVEMENTS" 104

VI. SUSAN CLEGG UPROOTED 129

VII. SUSAN CLEGG UNSETTLED 153

VIII. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CYCLONE 176

IX. SUSAN CLEGG'S PRACTICAL FRIEND 216

X. SUSAN CLEGG DEVELOPS IMAGINATION 236

XI. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE PLAYWRIGHT 256

XII. SUSAN CLEGG'S DISAPPEARANCE 277

SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS

I

SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING

Mrs. Lathrop sat on her front piazza, and Susan Clegg sat with her. Mrs. Lathrop was rocking, and Susan was just back from the Sewing Society. Neither Mrs. Lathrop nor Susan was materially altered since we saw them last. Time had moved on a bit, but not a great deal, and although both were older, still they were not much older.

They were not enough older for Mrs. Lathrop to have had a new rocker, nor for Susan to have purchased a new bonnet. Susan indeed looked almost absolutely unaltered. She was a woman of the best wearing quality; she was hard and firm as ever, and if there were any plating about her, it was of the quadruple kind and would last.

If the reader knows Susan Clegg at all, he will surmise that she was talking. And he will be right. Susan was most emphatically talking. She had returned from the Sewing Society full to the brim, and Mrs. Lathrop was already enjoying the overflow. Mrs. Lathrop liked to rock and listen. She never went to the Sewing Society herself she never went anywhere.

"We was talking about dreams," Susan was saying; "it's a very curious thing about dreams. Do you know, Mrs. Lathrop," wrinkling her brow and regarding her friend with that look of friendship which is not blind to any faults, "do you know, Mrs. Lathrop, they said down there that dreams always go by contraries. We was discussing it for a long time, and they ended up by making me believe in it. You see, it all began by my saying how I dreamed last night that Jathrop was back, and he was a cat and your cat, too, and he did something he wasn't let to, and you made one jump at him, and out of the window he went. Now that was a very strange dream for me to have dreamed, Mrs. Lathrop, and Mrs. Lupey, who's staying with Mrs. Macy to day and maybe to morrow, too, says she's sure it's a sign. She says if dreams go by contraries, mine ought to be a sign as Jathrop is coming back, for the contraries is all there: Jathrop wasn't a cat, and he never done nothing that he shouldn't nor that he should, neither and you never jump I don't believe you've jumped in years, have you?"

"I " began Mrs. Lathrop reminiscently.