Mrs. Lathrop slowly and meditatively drew a piece of sky-blue farmer's
satin from her bag and looked at it absent-mindedly. Susan twirled her
stocking and went on.

"'S long 's I've begun I may 's well make a clean breast of the whole
now. O' course you don't know nothin', Mrs. Lathrop, but, to put the
whole thing in a shell, this adoptin' of a child 's a good deal to
consider. When a woman 's married, it's the Lord's will 'n' out o' the
Bible 'n' to be took without no murmurin' 's to your own feelin's in
the matter. Every one 's sorry for married people, no matter how their
children turn out, because, good or bad, like enough they done their
best, 'n' if they didn't it was always the other one's fault; but
there ain't no one goin' to lay themselves out to try 'n' smooth my
child's thorns into a bed o' roses for me. Every one 's jus' goin' to
up 'n' blame me right 'n' left, 'n' if it has a pug-nose or turns out
bad I can't shoulder none of it onto the Lord, I'll jus' have the
whole c'mmunity sayin' I've got myself 'n' no one else to thank. Now,
when you know f'r sure 't you can't blame nobody else but jus'
yourself, you go pretty slow, 'n' for that very reason I'm thinkin'
this subjeck well over afore I decide. There's a good many questions
to consider,--my mind 's got to be made up whether boy or girl 'n' age
'n' so forth afore I shall open my lips to a livin' soul."

Mrs. Lathrop appeared to be slowly recovering from the effects of her
surprise.

"Would you take a small--" she asked, perhaps with some mental
reference to the remark that dowered her with the occasional charge of
the future adopted Clegg.