I feel that I shall be a far greater stickler for
propriety in regard to them than I am for myself!
"The first week in June was another dreadful one. The Austrians seemed
just on the point of overrunning Italy: and then came the first awful
news of the Battle of Jutland, which the Germans claimed as a great
victory. Susan was the only one who carried on. 'You need never tell me
that the Kaiser has defeated the British Navy,' she said, with a
contemptuous sniff. 'It is all a German lie and that you may tie to.'
And when a couple of days later we found out that she was right and that
it had been a British victory instead of a British defeat, we had to put
up with a great many 'I told you so's,' but we endured them very
comfortably.
"It took Kitchener's death to finish Susan. For the first time I saw her
down and out. We all felt the shock of it but Susan plumbed the depths
of despair. The news came at night by 'phone but Susan wouldn't believe
it until she saw the Enterprise headline the next day. She did not cry
or faint or go into hysterics; but she forgot to put salt in the soup,
and that is something Susan never did in my recollection. Mother and
Miss Oliver and I cried but Susan looked at us in stony sarcasm and
said, 'The Kaiser and his six sons are all alive and thriving. So the
world is not left wholly desolate. Why cry, Mrs. Dr. dear?' Susan
continued in this stony, hopeless condition for twenty-four hours, and
then Cousin Sophia appeared and began to condole with her.
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