after her tramps to and

There were, in fact, no lulls in her life with the Fulmers; butits commotions seemed to Susy less meaningless, and thereforeless fatiguing, than those that punctuated the existence ofpeople like Altringham, Ursula Gillow, Ellie Vanderlyn and theirtrain; and the noisy uncomfortable little house at Passy wasbeginning to greet her with the eyes of home when she returned there after her tramps to and from the children's classes. Atany rate she had the sense of doing something useful and evennecessary, and of earning her own keep, though on so modest ascale; and when the children were in their quiet mood, anddemanded books or music (or, even, on one occasion, at thesurprising Junie's instigation, a collective visit to theLouvre, where they recognized the most unlikely pictures, andthe two elders emitted startling technical judgments, and calledtheir companion's attention to details she had not observed); onthese occasions, Susy had a surprised sense of being drawn backinto her brief life with Nick, or even still farther and deeper,into those visions of Nick's own childhood on which the triviallater years had heaped their dust. 　　It was curious to think that if he and she had remainedtogether, and she had had a child--the vision used to come toher, in her sleepless hours, when she looked at little Geordie,in his cot by her bed--their life together might have been verymuch like the life she was now leading, a small obscure businessto the outer world, but to themselves how wide and deep andcrowded! 　　She could not bear, at that moment, the thought of giving upthis mystic relation to the life she had missed. In spite ofthe hurry and fatigue of her days, the shabbiness and discomfortof everything, and the hours when the children were as "horrid"as any other children, and turned a conspiracy of hostile facesto all her appeals; in spite of all this she did not want togive them up, and had decided, when their parents returned, toask to go back to America with them. Perhaps, if Nat's successcontinued, and Grace was able to work at her music, they wouldneed a kind of governess-companion. At any rate, she couldpicture no future less distasteful. 　　She had not sent to Mr. Spearman Nick's answer to her letter.