" He went out whistling gaily; but half an hour later, when pale
Anne Blythe came in, Susan was still sitting there.
"Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, making an admission she would once have
died rather than make, "I feel very old. Jem and Walter were yours but
Shirley is mine. And I cannot bear to think of him flying--his machine
crashing down--the life crushed out of his body--the dear little body
I nursed and cuddled when he was a wee baby."
"Susan--don't," cried Anne.
"Oh, Mrs. Dr. dear, I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said anything
like that out loud. I sometimes forget that I resolved to be a heroine.
This--this has shaken me a little. But I will not forget myself again.
Only if things do not go as smoothly in the kitchen for a few days I
hope you will make due allowance for me. At least," said poor Susan,
forcing a grim smile in a desperate effort to recover lost standing, "at
least flying is a clean job. He will not get so dirty and messed up as
he would in the trenches, and that is well, for he has always been a
tidy child."
So Shirley went--not radiantly, as to a high adventure, like Jem, not
in a white flame of sacrifice, like Walter, but in a cool, business-like
mood, as of one doing something, rather dirty and disagreeable, that had
just got to be done. He kissed Susan for the first time since he was
five years old, and said, "Good-bye, Susan--mother Susan.
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