It was late in July that Georgianna Lancaster startled and shocked the whole boarding-house out of its mid-summer calm. Susan, chronically affected by a wish that "something would happen," had been somewhat sobered by the fact that in poor Virginia's case something HAD happened. Suddenly Virginia's sight, accepted for years by them all as "bad," was very bad indeed. The great eye- doctor was angry that it had not been attended to before. "But it wasn't like this before!" Virginia protested patiently. She was always very patient after that, so brave indeed that the terrible thing that was coming swiftly and inevitably down upon her seemed quite impossible for the others to credit. But sometimes Susan heard her voice and Mrs. Lancaster's voice rising and falling for long, long talks in the night. "I don't believe it!" said Susan boldly, finding this attitude the most tenable in regard to Virginia's blindness.
Georgie's news, if startling, was not all bad. "Perhaps it'll raise the hoodoo from all of us old maids!" said Susan, inelegantly, to Mr. Oliver. "O'Connor doesn't look as if he had sense enough to raise anything, even the rent!" answered Billy cheerfully.
Susan heard the first of it on a windy, gritty Saturday afternoon, when she was glad to get indoors, and to take off the hat that had been wrenching her hair about. She came running upstairs to find Virginia lying limp upon the big bed, and Mary Lou, red-eyed and pale, sitting in the rocking-chair.
"Come in, dear, and shut it," said Mary Lou, sighing. "Sit down, Sue."
"What is it?" said Susan uneasily.
"Oh, Sue---!" began Virginia, and burst into tears.
"Now, now, darling!" Mary Lou patted her sister's hand.
"Auntie--" Susan asked, turning pale.
"No, Ma's all right," Mary Lou reassured her, "and there's nothing really wrong, Sue. But Georgie--Georgie, dear, she's married to Joe O'Connor! Isn't it DREADFUL?"
"But Ma's going to have it annulled," said Virginia instantly.
"Married!" Susan gasped. "You mean engaged!"
"No, dear, married," Mary Lou repeated, in a sad, musical voice. "They were married on Monday night--"
"Tell me!" commanded Susan, her eyes flashing with pleasurable excitement.
"We don't know much, Sue dear. Georgie's been acting rather odd and she began to cry after breakfast this morning, and Ma got it out of her. I thought Ma would faint, and Georgie just SCREAMED. I kept calling out to Ma to be calm--" Susan could imagine the scene. "So then Ma took Georgie upstairs, and Jinny and I worked around, and came up here and made up this room. And just before lunch Ma came up, and--she looked chalk-white, didn't she, Jinny?"