II

MISS CLEGG'S ADOPTED


It was an evening in early October,--one of those first frosty nights
when a bright wood fire is so agreeable to contemplate and so more
than agreeable to sit in front of. Susan Clegg sat in front of hers,
and doubtless thoroughly appreciated its cheerful warmth, but it
cannot be said that she took any time to contemplate it, for her gaze
was altogether riveted upon the stocking which she was knitting, and
which appeared--for the time being--to absorb completely that
persevering energy which was the dominant note of her character.

But still the beauty and brilliancy of the leaping flames were not
altogether lost upon an unseeing world, for there was another present
beside Susan, and that other was full to overflowing with the power of
silent admiration. Her little black beady eyes stared at the dancing
lights that leapt from each burning log in a species of rapt
absorption, and it was only semi-occasionally that she turned them
back upon the work which lay upon her lap. Mrs. Lathrop (for of course
it was Mrs. Lathrop) was matching scraps for a "crazy" sofa-pillow,
and there was something as touchingly characteristic in the calmness
and deliberation of her matching as there was in the wild whirl which
Susan's stocking received whenever that lady felt the moment had come
to alter her needles. For Susan, when she knit, knit fast and
furiously, whereas Mrs. Lathrop's main joy in relation to labor lay in
the sensation that she was preparing to undertake it. The sofa-pillow