without a glance at the transfixed lady of Ingleside.
“Susan,” gasped Anne.
Susan halted in her mad career, set down her pot, and shook her fist after Mr. Pryor, who had not ceased to run, evidently believing that Susan was still in full cry after him.
“Susan, what does this mean?” demanded Anne, a little severely.
“You may well ask that, Mrs. Dr. dear,” Susan replied wrathfully. “I have not been so upset in years. That—that—that pacifist has actually had the audacity to come up here and, in my own kitchen, to ask me to marry him. Him!”
Anne choked back a laugh.
“But—Susan! Couldn’t you have found a—well, a less spectacular method of refusing him? Think what a gossip this would have made if any one had been going past and had seen such a performance.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, you are quite right. I did not think of it because I was quite past thinking rationally. I was just clean mad. Come in the house and I will tell you all about it.”
Susan picked up her pot and marched into the kitchen, still trembling with wrathful excitement. She set her pot on the stove with a vicious thud.
“Wait a moment until I open all the windows to air this kitchen well, Mrs. Dr. dear. There, that is better. And I must wash my hands, too, because I shook hands with Whiskers-on-the-moon when he came in—not that I wanted to, but when he stuck out his fat, oily hand I did not know just what else to do at the moment. I had just finished my afternoon clean-
