Susan interrupted her with a hard laugh. "Love secrets! I should think so, indeed; why, a woman is so fond of a secret and considers it such a precious thing that she cannot even keep it to herself. She must needs go, unselfish generous creature, and share the treasure with all her friends. Nasty people hint so, anyhow. Now as you are not a bad little thing, though a little fool, I'll tell you a secret. I'm going to leave the hospital soon. I've got a very good _place_ through Sister Eliza." "What are you going to do?" asked Mary, deeply interested, for she knew what "a place" signified, without the emphasis which Susan had laid on the expression. "Nothing less than be a sort of nursery governess in Lord Doughton's house," was the reply. "Lord Doughton!" exclaimed Mary. "Why, Sister Eliza says that he is the largest landed proprietor in England since his marriage with that heiress whose estates adjoined his." "Sister Eliza is quite right," said Susan. "She makes it her business to keep a registry of all that concerns the great landed proprietors. Lord Doughton has been married eleven years; he has three children; the eldest is a boy of ten, a cripple. Think of that, no less than three to get rid of. Aren't you jealous?" "But you don't mean that a child as old as that has to be--to be--" "But of course I do," interrupted Susan sharply, then continued with her usual heartless flippant tones. "I'll tell you what it is, my girl, the sooner you get the rest of this sentimentality out of you, the better. It's sickening." "Surely there is a great distinction between removing babies just born, who have not really begun to live, and killing big boys and men." Susan laughed. "Bless me, here's a fine moral distinction! What _is_ the difference pray, Miss Casuist? But turn off here, across the grass. If we are going to talk of these things we had better go where there is no chance of eaves-dropping. Our conversation would rather surprise that shabby-looking old person there if he overheard it, wouldn't it? Let's go and ask him what is the latest age at which it is justifiable to put away a human being for the public good." "For God's sake, Susan, let us talk seriously!" Mary said. "For _whose_ sake? don't know him; but for your sake I'll be sober for a little time as you hate joviality; you'll be jovial enough though when you are as old as I am, and have gone through as much. It's by joviality people who have suffered plenty make up for it when it's all over. You'll find that out. People who have lived untroubled lives are seldom jovial." They walked on in silence a short distance, then Mary after looking around her said: "There is no one about here; there is no danger of anyone overhearing us now." "Right you are, Mary; so now I'll answer your question. _Did_ you ask me a question by-the-bye?" "I don't think so; but we were talking about this boy of Lord Doughton's."