SHE SLEEPS
THE next morning Susan felt perturbed. "She'll take up a whole week of
our happy visit, and I can't bear to lose a minute. The time's going too
fast, anyhow."
Lorenzo Rath came in shortly after. He and Madeleine and Emily Mead were
in and out daily to suit themselves by this time. "Do you know, Mrs.
Croft has gone off, nobody knows where," he said gravely; "she's left no
address, and people say she'll never come back."
Susan threw up her hands with a wail. "Oh, Jane, she _has_ left that
dreadful old woman on us for life; I'll just bet anything folks knew
exactly that she meant to do it when they talked to me so. What _will_
Matilda say when she comes back?"
Jane was silent a minute. "It's no use doubting what one really
believes," she said finally. "I do really believe that I came here for a
good purpose, and I know that I had a good purpose in inviting Mrs.
Croft. I'm taught that to doubt is like pouring ink into the pure water
of one's good intentions, and I won't doubt. I refuse to."
"But if you go back to where you come from and leave me with Matilda and
old Mrs. Croft, I'll be dead or I'll wish I was dead,--it all comes to
the same thing," cried poor Susan.
"Auntie," said Jane firmly, "I shan't leave you alone with Aunt Matilda
and Mrs. Croft, you needn't fear."
"Oh," said Susan, her face undergoing a lightning transformation, "if
you'll stay here, I'll keep Mrs. Croft or anybody else, with pleasure."
"What, even me?" laughed Lorenzo.
"I'd like to keep you," said Susan warmly. "I think you're one of the
nicest young men I ever knew."
"I'd like to stay," said Lorenzo, looking at Jane.
She lifted up her eyes and they had a peculiar expression.
Just then Emily Mead came in. "Only think," she said, directly greetings
were over, "people say Mrs. Croft drew all their money out of the bank
before she left. Everybody says she's deserted her mother-in-law
completely."
"Jane, it really is so," said Susan; "she really is gone."
Jane looked steadily into their three faces. "If I begin worrying and
doubting, of course there'll be a chance to worry and trouble, because
I'm the strongest of you all," she said gravely, "but I won't go down
and live in the world of worry and trouble under any circumstances. I
know that only good can come of Mrs. Croft's being here. I _know_ it!"
"I wish that I could learn how you manage such faith," said the young
artist. "I'd try it on myself,--yes, I would, for a fact."
"It's not so easy," said Jane, looking earnestly at him. "It means just
the same mental discipline that physical culture means for the muscles.
It takes time."
"But I'd like to learn," said Lorenzo.
"So would I!" said Emily Mead.
"I've begun already," said Susan; "every time I think of old Mrs. Croft
I say: 'She's here for some good purpose, God help us.'"
"Tell me," said Emily Mead, "what possessed you to have her, anyway?
Everybody's wondering."
"Jane thought that it would be a nice thing to do. And so we did it."
"Do you always do things if you think of them?" Emily asked Jane.
"I'm taught that I must."
"Taught?"
"It's part of my sunshine work."
"That's why she's here," interposed Susan; "she thought of me and came
right along."
Emily looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I could learn," she said.
"Anybody can learn anything," said Lorenzo.
"Wouldn't it be nice to all learn Jane's religion?"
"I've got it most learned," said Susan, "I'm to where I'm most ready to
stand Matilda, if only we don't have to keep old Mrs. Croft."
"What is old Mrs. Croft doing now?" Emily asked suddenly.
"She's still asleep. She says that she sleeps late."
Then Emily rose to go. Lorenzo Rath rose and left with her.
"Jane," said Susan solemnly, after they were alone, "I'm afraid that
religion of yours ain't as practical as it might be, after all. It's got
us old Mrs. Croft, and I ain't saying a word, but now I'm about positive
it's going to lose you that young man. You could have him if you'd just
exert yourself a little, and you don't at all."
"I couldn't have him, Auntie."
"Yes, you could. Don't tell me. I know a young man when I see one, and
Mr. Rath's a real young man. He loves you, Jane, just because nobody
could help it, and if you weren't always so busy, he'd get on a good
deal faster."
"I can't marry, Aunt Susan." Jane, with Madeleine's secret high in her
heart, was very busy setting the kitchen to rights. "Some people are not
meant to have homes of their own. It's the century."
"Fiddle for the century," said Susan, with something almost like
violence. "I'm awful tired of all this hash and talk about the century.
About the only thing I've had to think of since Matilda made up her mind
I was too sick to get up, was what I read in newspapers about the
troubles of the century. Centuries is always in hot water till they're
well over, and then they get to be called the good old days. I guess
days ain't so different nor centuries either nor women neither. Fiddle
for all this kind of rubbish,--it's no use except to upset a nice girl
like you and keep her from marrying a nice young fellow like Mr. Rath.
Girls don't know nothing about love no more. Mercy on us, why, it's a
kind of thing that makes you willing to go right out and hack down trees
for the man."
Jane looked a little smiling and a little wistful. "I'll tell you what
it is, Auntie," she said; "when my father died he left a debt that ought
to be paid, and I promised him I'd pay it. I couldn't marry--it wouldn't
be honest."
Susan's eyes flew pitifully open. "Good heavens, mercy on us, no; then
you never can't marry, sure and certain. There never was the man yet so
good he wouldn't throw a thing like that in a woman's teeth. It's a
man's way, my dear, and a wife ought not to mind, but one of the
difficulties of being a wife is that you always do mind."
"I know that I should mind," said Jane quietly, "and, anyway, I don't
want to marry. I'm much happier going about on my sunbeam mission,
trying to help others a bit here and a bit there." She smiled bravely as
she spoke, for all that it takes a deal of training in truth not to
waver or quaver in such a minute. She had to think steadily along the
lines which she had worked so hard to build into every brain-cell and
spirit-fiber of her make-up. "Auntie," she went on then, after a brief
reflection that he who works in truth's wool works without fear as to
the breaking of one single thread, "you and I are trying dreadfully
hard--trying with all our might to do exactly right. We're trying to
break your chains by the only way in which material chains can be
broken,--by breaking those of others. We can't go astray. If old Mrs.
Croft should stay here till she died, and if I should work till I died
at paying the debts of others, she'd stay for some good purpose, and I'd
be working in the same way. Be very sure of that."
For a second Susan looked cheered--but only for a second. Then, "That's
all very well for you and me, who want to be uplifted--at least you want
to be, and I think maybe I'll like it after I get a little used to it.
But Matilda doesn't know or care anything about planes, and it's Matilda
I keep thinking of." There was another pause, and then she added: "And
it's Matilda I'll have to live with,--along with old Mrs. Croft. Oh,
Jane, I'd be so much happier if you'd marry Mr. Rath and let me come and
live with you!"
Jane went and put her arms about her. "Auntie, it isn't easy to learn my
way of looking at things, because you have to keep at them till they're
so firm in you that nothing from outside can ever shake or uproot them.
But what I believe is just so firm with me, and I won't give anything
up,--not even about Mrs. Croft. We're all right and she's all right and
everything's all right, and I don't need to marry any one."
Susan winked mournfully. "If there was only some way to meet Matilda on
her way home and kind of get that through her head before she saw Mrs.
Croft. You see, she always shuts that room up cold winters and keeps
cold meat in there. I've had many a good meal out of that room."
"You must not cast about for ways and means," said Jane firmly. "Life is
like a sunshiny warm day, and our part is to breathe and feel and thank
God,--not to look for the sun to surely cease shining."
"But it does stop," wailed Susan, "often."
"Yes, thank Heaven," said Jane, "if it didn't, we'd be burnt up alive by
our own vitality."
"Oh, dear," said Susan briefly, "you've an answer for everything. Well,
let's get dinner."
They went into the kitchen.