“Yes; why not?  She’s very fond of me.”

“But she’s no end of a howler.  They say she’s worth her weight in gold, and that her father is a sort of king in Ireland.  Why should she take up with a little girl like you?”

“Well, Tom, some people like me, although you think but little of your sister.  Kathleen is very fond of me.  I invited her to have tea with us to-morrow, and she is coming.”

“My word!” said Tom.  “To think that I shall be sitting at the same table with her!  I’ll be able to make my own terms now with John Short and Harry Reid and the rest of the chaps.  Why, Susy, you must be a genius, and I thought you weren’t much of a sort.”

“I am better than you think; and she is fond of me.”

“And you really and truly call her by her Christian name?”

“Of course I do.”

Susy longed to tell Tom about the wonderful society; but its strictest rule was that it was never to be spoken about to outsiders.  Susy, as a member of the Cabinet, must certainly be one of the last to break the rules.

Mrs. Hopkins came back at that moment.  She had added a pound of sausage and a little piece of pork to their usual Sunday fare.  She had also brought sixpennyworth of apples with her.

“These are to make a pudding,” she said.  “I think we shall do now very well.”

Susy and Tom quite agreed with their mother.  Susy rose and prepared supper, and at the crucial moment the new-laid egg was laid on Mrs. Hopkins’s plate.  It takes, perhaps, a great deal of poverty to truly appreciate a new-laid egg.  Mrs. Hopkins was delighted with hers; she thought Tom the noblest boy in the world for having denied himself in order to give it to her.  Tears filled her tired eyes as she thanked God for her good children.

Susy and Tom watched her as she ate the egg, and thought how delicious it must taste, but were glad she had it.

The following day dawned bright and clear, with a suspicion of frost in the air.  It was, as Tom expressed it, a perfect day.  Susy went to church with her mother in the morning, the dinner being all prepared and left to cook itself in the oven.  Tom started at about eleven o’clock on his walk to the tiny village where Mrs. Church lived.

As soon as Susy returned from her place of worship she helped her mother to get the little parlor ready.  She put some autumn leaves in a jug on the center of the table.  Her mother brought out the best china, which had not been used since her husband’s death.  The best china was very pretty, and Susy thought that no table could look more elegant than theirs.  The best china was accompanied by some quite good knives and forks.  The forks were real silver; Mrs. Hopkins regarded them with pride.

“If the worst—­the very worst—­comes,” she said to Susy, “we can sell them; but I cling to them as a piece of respectability that I never want to part from.  Your dear father gave them to me on our wedding-day—­a whole dozen of beautiful silver forks with the hall-mark on them, and his initials on the handle of each.  I want them to be Tom’s some day.  Silver should always be handed on to the eldest son.”