“Josephine Carroll killed!  Why—­it’s the most awful thing I ever heard!” Mary Lou exclaimed.  Her horror quieted Susan.

“Billy didn’t know anything more than that,” Susan said, beginning hastily to change her dress.  “I’ll go straight over there, I guess.  He said they only had a wire, but that one of the afternoon papers has a short account.  My goodness—­goodness—­goodness—­when they were all so happy!  And Jo always the gayest of them all—­it doesn’t seem possible!”

Still dazed, she crossed the bay in the pleasant afternoon sunlight, and went up to the house.  Anna was already there, and the four spent a quiet, sad evening together.  No details had reached them, the full force of the blow was not yet felt.  When Anna had to go away the next day Susan stayed; she and Betsy got the house ready for the mother’s home-coming, put away Josephine’s dresses, her tennis-racket, her music—–­

“It’s not right!” sobbed the rebellious little sister.  “She was the best of us all—­and we’ve had so much to bear!  It isn’t fair!”

“It’s all wrong,” Susan said, heavily.

Mrs. Carroll, brave and steady, if very tired, came home on the third day, and with her coming the atmosphere of the whole house changed.  Anna had come back again; the sorrowing girls drew close about their mother, and Susan felt that she was not needed.

“Mrs. Carroll is the most wonderful woman in the world!” she said to Billy, going home after the funeral.  “Yes,” Billy answered frowningly.  “She’s too darn wonderful!  She can’t keep this up!”

Georgie and Joe came to Mrs. Lancaster’s house for an afternoon visit on Thanksgiving Day, arriving in mid-afternoon with the two babies, and taking Myra and Helen home again before the day grew too cold.  Virginia arrived, using her own eyes for the first time in years, and the sisters and their mother laughed and cried together over the miracle of the cure.  When Alfie and Freda came there was more hilarity.  Freda very prettily presented her mother-in-law, whose birthday chanced to fall on the day, with a bureau scarf.  Alfred, urged, Susan had no doubt, by his wife, gave his mother ten dollars, and asked her with a grin to buy herself some flowers.  Virginia had a lace collar for Ma, and the white-coated O’Connor babies, with much pushing and urging, bashfully gave dear Grandma a tissue-wrapped bundle that proved to be a silk gown.  Mary Lou unexpectedly brought down from her room a box containing six heavy silver tea-spoons.

Where Mary Lou ever got the money to buy this gift was rather a mystery to everyone except Susan, who had chanced to see the farewells that took place between her oldest cousin and Mr. Ferd Eastman, when the gentleman, who had been making a ten-days visit to the city, left a day or two earlier for Virginia City.

“Pretty soon after his wife’s death!” Susan had accused Mary Lou, vivaciously.

“Ferd has often kissed me—­like a brother—–­” stammered Mary Lou, coloring painfully, and with tears in her kind eyes.  And, to Susan’s amazement, her aunt, evidently informed of the event by Mary Lou, had asked her not to tease her cousin about Ferd.  Susan felt certain that the spoons were from Ferd.