Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/345

Rh spite of the most dogged orthodoxy of religious belief.

Just before Susan was eighteen years old, and a few weeks before her graduation at Madame Delancy's, Mr. Thomas Lawton died. Mrs. Lawton was now left as free and independent, and nearly as rich, as Susan. Her love for her husband had been very sincere as far as it went, but it had not been of such a nature as to make his death a heart-breaking thing to her. Life looked very attractive to Mrs. Thomas Lawton as one morning, a few months after her husband had died, and six weeks after Susan had left school, she and Susan sat together in the handsome library, planning what they would do for themselves for the winter.

"Bell," said Susan, energetically, "it 's perfectly splendid that you can chaperon me everywhere! I 've always had a terror of the time when I 'd have to hire some lay figure of respectability to live with me and go about with me, and all that. I know I should have hated her. I expect I should have changed her as often as poor papa had to change cooks. But now it 's all right. You and I can go all over the world together. You can do what you like, because you 're a widow."

"Oh, don't Susan!" exclaimed Mrs. Lawton, deprecatingly. "How can you run on so?"

"Why, Bell, dear, I did n't mean to hurt your feelings," said Susan; but it 's true—a widow can go anywhere. If you had n't been married, you