Listlessly, Suzanna returned downstairs, and from the pantry procured a cup. Slowly she left the house, walked down the front path and across the road to Mrs. Reynolds' home. Arrived there, she went round to the back door and knocked with slack knuckles. Mrs. Reynolds, a white cloth tied about her forehead, opened the door. She gave out redolently the pungent odor of the commodity Suzanna sought to borrow. Mrs. Reynolds was stout and comfortable looking ordinarily. A quaint and interesting personality, sprung from Welsh parentage, she fitted into the life of Anchorville only because of a certain natural adaptability. She seemed to belong to a wilder, more passionate people than those plain lives which surrounded her. Suzanna knew her tenderness, her tragic depressions. She loved her deep voice, her resonant tones, all her quick changes of mood, and her occasional strange ways of expression, revealing her understanding of men and women's vagaries. Mrs. Reynolds adored Suzanna. She had said often there was one thing she coveted from her neighbor, and that was her neighbor's child. Mrs. Reynolds had no children and in that deplorable fact lay her keenest unhappiness. She greeted Suzanna cordially. "Come in, Suzanna, come in," she said. "I've been using vinegar and red pepper all morning," she continued, as she went her way to the pantry with Suzanna's cup. "I've one of my old headaches." "Oh, I'm so sorry," said Suzanna, with immediate sympathy. "Have you been worrying?" "Not more than usual, Suzanna," said Mrs. Reynolds with a sigh. "Here's your vinegar. Hold it steady. Vinegar's a bad thing to spill." "Thank you," said Suzanna, politely, as she received the cup. And then: "I don't see why you should worry. You have no children. It's mother's many children that sometimes give her worry." "Your mother'd have worries even without you all," returned Mrs. Reynolds. "Won't you sit down a spell, Suzanna?" "No, I can't, mother's waiting." Suzanna walked toward the door, pausing on her way to glance about her. "My, but you're very clean here," she said, appreciatively. "Your cleanness is different from ours. Ours doesn't show so." "There's no little hands to clutter things up," said Mrs. Reynolds, but her voice wasn't glad. Suzanna, intuitively sensing the real trouble, said: "Reynolds slammed the door this morning, Mrs. Reynolds. We heard the slam in our dining-room and my mother jumped." Suzanna quite innocently borrowed Mrs. Reynolds' way of referring to her husband. Mrs. Reynolds' face darkened. "Yes, I know he did. That man is getting more like a bear every day." "He liked our twin that went away, Mrs. Reynolds. He wasn't like a bear when he played with her." At this statement Mrs. Reynolds suddenly threw her apron over her head and sobbed: "That's just it, Suzanna, that's just it; there aren't any little cluttering fingers about."