I could have told all those stupid Englishmen what was ahead of them . I told you , John Meredith , years ago what the Kaiser was up to but you would n't believe it . You said he would never plunge the world in war . Who was right about the Kaiser , John ? You -- or I ? Tell me that . '' `` You were , I admit , '' said Mr. Meredith . `` It 's too late to admit it now , '' said Mrs. Norman , shaking her head , as if to intimate that if John Meredith had admitted it sooner there might have been no war . `` Thank God , England 's navy is ready , '' said the doctor . `` Amen to that , '' nodded Mrs. Norman . `` Bat-blind as most of them were somebody had foresight enough to see to that . '' `` Maybe England 'll manage not to get into trouble over it , '' said Cousin Sophia plaintively . `` I dunno . But I 'm much afraid . '' `` One would suppose that England was in trouble over it already , up to her neck , Sophia Crawford , '' said Susan . `` But your ways of thinking are beyond me and always were . It is my opinion that the British Navy will settle Germany in a jiffy and that we are all getting worked up over nothing . '' Susan spat out the words as if she wanted to convince herself more than anybody else . She had her little store of homely philosophies to guide her through life , but she had nothing to buckler her against the thunderbolts of the week that had just passed . What had an honest , hard-working , Presbyterian old maid of Glen St. Mary to do with a war thousands of miles away ?
Susan felt XXXXX it was indecent that she should have to be disturbed by it .
about ago as beyond in of over that through to