Darling had
gone. (She always calls him poor dear Mr. Darling now, but Susie
says she didn't when he was alive; she called him something quite
different. I wonder what it was.)
Well, as I said, Father hitched and fidgeted, and said he didn't know,
he was sure; that she'd better take wiser counsel than his, and that
he was very sorry, but she really must excuse him. And he got through
the door while he was talking just as fast as he could himself, so
that she couldn't get in a single word to keep him. Then he was gone.
Mrs. Darling stayed on the piazza two whole hours longer, but Father
never came out at all again.
It was the next morning that Susie said this over the back-yard fence
to Bridget:
"It does beat all how popular this house is with the ladies--after
college hours!"
And Bridget chuckled and answered back:
"Sure it is! An' I do be thinkin' the Widder Darlin' is a heap fonder
of Miss Jane now than she would have been had poor dear Mr. Darlin'
lived!"
And she chuckled again, and so did Susie. And then, all of a sudden,
I knew. It was Father all those ladies wanted. It was Father Mrs.
Darling wanted. They came here to see him. They wanted to marry him.
_They_ were the prospective suitors. As if I didn't know what Susie
and Bridget meant! I'm no child!
But all this doesn't make Father like _them_.
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