It was all of half an hour before Mrs. Macy, the first completely to rally from the shock at the station, arrived to call. When she climbed the steps and rang the bell, Susan came to the door at once. She looked peculiarly grim and smileless. It was plain to be seen at the present moment that she was not pleased with the world in general. "I thought I'd just come up for a little," began Mrs. Macy, smiling enough for two all alone by herself. Mrs. Macy always tried to keep up her own spirits in a laudable attempt, possibly, to heighten those of others. "I thought maybe you'd be glad to see a face you knew." This allusion to the Chinese lady was not intended as unkindly as it might have been in better society, Mrs. Macy being wholly incapable of anything so subtle. "Sit down," said Susan, briefly, indicating a porch chair. "There's no use taking you in; she's up-stairs unpacking, and she's already set about doing his cooking. It's plain to be seen that Jathrop Lathrop never come all this way from the Klondike to take any chances of being poisoned by me as soon as he got here. No, sir, Jathrop Lathrop has learned too many little tricks for that." Susan's tone was extremely bitter. She had removed the famous striped silk and applied her hairbrush to both sides of her head after dipping it (the hairbrush, not her head) in water. It was easy to be seen that the vanities of this life had suddenly become offensive in her nostrils. "Do you suppose she's really his wife?" asked Mrs. Macy, seating herself and looking eagerly in her friend's face. "Oh, yes, she's his wife," said Susan. "Oh, Susan," Mrs. Macy went on, her eyes becoming quite globular under the severe stress of her curiosity, "do you suppose anybody married 'em, or did he just buy her for beads?" "I don't know," said Susan, rocking severely back and forth, "I don't know a _tall_. You must ask some one wiser than me what a white man does about a Chinese when he wants her to cook for him. You ought to have seen her in my kitchen, Mrs. Macy; she walked straight to my rack of pans and took down just whatever she fancied. I _never_ saw the beat! No, nor nobody else. She's learned how to be cool from Jathrop and the North Pole together, looks to me. I never see such ways as Jathrop has picked up. He never said a word walking up--nothing but 'Ah' once. I don't call 'Ah' once much of a conversation for the woman as rocked your cradle and might have married you, too--if she'd wanted to. For I could have married Jathrop Lathrop, Mrs. Macy; nobody but me will ever know what passed between us, but I could have married him. I won't say what prevented, but I can tell you it wasn't him. And he's lived to regret it, too. Just like the minister regrets it. When the minister speaks of the treasure that layeth up in heaven, he doesn't mean no chicken--he means me." Susan paused and shook her head angrily.