Another who followed with sympathetic interest the domestic comedy was Susan, our maid-of-all-work, the first of a long and varied series, extending unto the advent of Amy, to whom the blessing of Heaven. Susan was a stout and elderly female, liable to sudden fits of sleepiness, the result, we were given to understand, of trouble; but her heart, it was her own proud boast, was always in the right place. She could never look at my father and mother sitting anywhere near each other but she must flop down and weep awhile; the sight of connubial bliss always reminding her, so she would explain, of the past glories of her own married state. Though an earnest enquirer, I was never able myself to grasp the ins and outs of this past married life of Susan's. Whether her answers were purposely framed to elude curiosity, or whether they were the result of a naturally incoherent mind, I cannot say. Their tendency was to convey confusion. On Monday I have seen Susan shed tears of regret into the Brussels sprouts, that she had been debarred by the pressure of other duties from lately watering “his” grave, which, I gathered, was at Manor Park. While on Tuesday I have listened, blood chilled, to the recital of her intentions should she ever again enjoy the luxury of getting her fingers near the scruff of his neck. “But, I thought, Susan, he was dead,” was my very natural comment upon this outbreak. “So did I, Master Paul,” was Susan's rejoinder; “that was his artfulness.” “Then he isn't buried in Manor Park Cemetery?” “Not yet; but he'll wish he was, the half-baked monkey, when I get hold of him.” “Then he wasn't a good man?” “Who?” “Your husband.” “Who says he ain't a good man?” It was Susan's flying leaps from tense to tense that most bewildered me. “If anybody says he ain't I'll gouge their eye out!” I hastened to assure Susan that my observation had been intended in the nature of enquiry, not of assertion. “Brings me a bottle of gin--for my headaches--every time he comes home,” continued Susan, showing cause for opinion, “every blessed time.” And at some such point as this I would retire to the clearer atmosphere of German grammar or mixed fractions. We suffered a good deal from Susan one way and another; for having regard to the admirable position of her heart, we all felt it our duty to overlook mere failings of the flesh--all but my aunt, that is, who never made any pretence of being a sentimentalist. “She's a lazy hussy,” was the opinion expressed of her one morning by my aunt, who was rinsing; “a gulping, snorting, lazy hussy, that's what she is.” There was some excuse for my aunt's indignation. It was then eleven o'clock and Susan was still sleeping off an attack of what she called “new-ralgy.” “She has seen a good deal of trouble,” said my mother, who was wiping. “And if she was my cook and housemaid,” replied my aunt, “she would see more, the slut!”