Mr. Towle gave no sign of a continued interest in Jane's affairs; and because he did not, that imprudent young person felt herself to be lonely and neglected beyond her deserts. At night, in the stuffy seclusion of the trunkroom, she wept large tears into her thin pillow, and prayed with truly feminine inconsistency and fervor for numbers of things which she as resolutely thrust aside by day.

Twice she sought solace and advice from Bertha Forbes, and as often spurned both, when both were urged upon her.

"You remind me," said Miss Forbes at last, "of a horse we used to have out in the country. My brothers were burning the stumps out of a ten-acre wood lot one summer, and that animal would jump over the fence and go and roll in the hot coals and ashes whenever he got a chance till his hide was burned into holes. The creature must have suffered frightfully, but he persisted in doing it just the same. We had to tie him up after a bit."

"Oh, thanks!" cried Jane angrily, "perhaps you think I need tying up."

"I do, indeed," agreed Bertha Forbes cheerfully. She studied the pretty, wilful face in silence for a few moments. "You are much too fond of having your own way," she added sententiously, "and one's own way is so seldom the path of pleasantness that the Bible tells about. I know, for I've tried it."

She swallowed hard once or twice, then she went on in her gruffest voice. "Look here, Jane, I don't want to see you make the fool of yourself that I did. I somehow got the notion that a woman was just as able as a man to make her way in the world, and that I wasn't going to depend upon 'petticoat push' for my living. I despised the idea of being dependent upon anybody, and so I—I— Well, to cut a long story short, I told the only man who ever cared enough about me to want to take care of me, that I could take care of myself. I told him so three times in all, I remember. The third time he said, 'All right, Bertha; I reckon you'll have to try.' A year later he married one of those soft pink-and-white little things that I had always looked down upon as being too insignificant to despise. Yesterday——"

Bertha Forbes paused to gulp painfully once or twice. "Yesterday that woman passed me in her carriage. There was a child on either side of her, and she was dressed like a flower; which means, you know, a bit more magnificently than Solomon in all his glory. She didn't know me, of course. And I tramped on down to my office. You know what my work is, Jane."

"Yes, I know," and Jane blushed painfully. "I—I don't really like taking care of myself," she murmured, after a little, "but I can't see how I am going to help myself for a while. Anyway, you may be happier in your horrid office than that woman in her carriage, unless she—loves the man who gives it to her." The girl finished with a soft, far-away look in her brown eyes.

"Right you are!" cried Bertha Forbes, bringing down her capable-looking hand upon her knee with a businesslike whack. "I'm not envying the woman; not I. Fancy me with a ridiculous feather bobbing over one eye, and diamonds and folderols of all sorts disposed upon my person. Wouldn't I be a holy show?"

"You're really very good looking, when one looks at you carefully, Bertha," said the girl seriously, "but you need handsome clothes to bring out your good points."

"Guess my points good or bad will have to remain in innocuous desuetude then," Miss Forbes said gruffly. "'Nough said about B. F., my dear. And if you're set on staying on in your servile position, and allowing that absurdly pretentious little matron and her infant to walk all over you, I've nothing to say, of course. Do the men treat you properly, child?"

Jane stared at her friend resentfully. "I don't know what you mean," she said. "Mrs. Belknap's husband and brother are both gentlemen, and I—am her servant."

"That's all right, child; but mind you keep that good-looking chap—what's his name? Oh, Everett—yes; mind you keep him at his distance, whatever you do."

"Bertha!" cried Jane.

"You needn't 'Bertha' me," said Miss Forbes severely. "I'm an old maid all right; but I know a thing or two if I am forty, and now that Mr. Towle has gone back to England——"

"Has he gone back?"

"Well; why not? You didn't want him to stay on in America, did you?"

"N-o," faltered Jane, "I-I'm glad he's gone." Nevertheless she felt a more poignant throb of loneliness than usual as she stepped down from the trolley car in the gathering twilight at the close of her "afternoon out." Had it fallen to the lot of the Hon. Wipplinger Towle to present himself at that moment Fortune might have been genuinely kind instead of amusedly scornful in view of his aspirations.

That same evening Mrs. Belknap shut her chamber door safely after a careful reconnaissance of the hall. "Jimmy, dear, I'm almost distracted," she confided to her husband.

"Why, what's the matter, dear girl?" he asked,"has Buster been up to his tricks again? Or is Mary's cousin's wife's mother's brother 'tuk bad wid cramps'?"

Mrs. Belknap heaved a deep sigh as she shook her head; her pretty white forehead was puckered into unbecoming folds of deep anxiety. "It's Jane," she said in a sepulchral whisper.

"If you don't like the girl, get rid of her," advised Mr. Belknap strongly. "I've thought all along this two-maid business is a mistake for us. It's too—er—complicated, somehow."

"Oh, Jimmy Belknap!" exclaimed his wife reproachfully; "it was you who advised me to get another girl. You simply made me do it; you know you did. Mary is away so often, and——"

"Bounce Mary, too!" cried the perfidious Mr. Belknap cheerfully. "Let's have a new deal all the way 'round, Margaret. That Mary's a fraud, or I'm a duffer."

"Oh, but, Jimmy, she's such a good cook! And I'm sure I couldn't get another like her. Why, poor Mrs. Bliss hasn't had a girl these last two months, and she tells me she's tried everywhere! And the people across the street are alone, too, and——"

"I can cook," put in Mr. Belknap confidently. "You just let me get the breakfast. When I put my mind to it there's nothing I can't do about a house."

"Oh, you!" scoffed his wife, reaching up to pull a lock of wavy hair on Mr. Belknap's tall head. "After you've gotten breakfast, Jimmy, it takes me all the morning to put the kitchen to rights again."

"But my coffee is out of sight," pursued Mr. Belknap complacently, "and my poached eggs can't be beat. I believe,"—boldly,—"I could make a pie!"

"Of course you could," agreed his wife ironically, "but I shouldn't want to be obliged to eat it. But, seriously, Jimmy, I'm losing things—almost every day some little thing. Do you suppose it's Jane?"

Mr. Belknap looked grave. "It's more likely to be Mary," he said. "Perhaps," he added hopefully, "it's Buster. He's a regular magpie. Do you remember about my slippers?"

Both parents paused to indulge in reminiscent laughter over the memory of the missing slippers which had been found, after days of fruitless searching, in the spare bedroom under the pillows.

"He was helping me pick up—the blessed lamb!" said Mrs. Belknap fondly. "But I'm sure he hasn't picked up my shell comb, two hat pins, half a dozen handkerchiefs, my best white silk stockings, and your college fraternity badge."

Mr. Belknap whistled sharply. "What?" he exclaimed, "has my frat pin disappeared? I say, Margaret, that looks serious!"

"It was in my jewel box," went on Mrs. Belknap solemnly, "pinned carefully onto the lining of the cover. You know I scarcely ever wear it now; I'm saving it for Buster. But I happened to go to the box for something else the other day; and, Jimmy, it's gone!"

Mr. Belknap fidgeted uneasily in his chair. "Confound it!" he murmured. "Well, Margaret, I'd advise you to get rid of both of 'em; and meanwhile lock up your valuables. We can take our meals out for a while, if worse comes to worst."

"I hate to think it's Jane," sighed Mrs. Belknap; "she seems such a nice girl. But appearances are so often deceptive; I really ought to have insisted upon references."

"From the lady smuggler?" Mr. Belknap wanted to know.

His wife dissolved in helpless laughter. "I never believed that story for a minute," she said, "nor the Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe part, either. She simply wanted me to think that she wasn't an ordinary servant, poor thing. It would be dreadful to go drifting around the world, drudging first in one house and then in another; wouldn't it, Jimmy? I am sure I can't think what sort of a maid I should have been."

Mr. Belknap surveyed his wife smilingly. "You'd have got me all right, whatever you were doing," he assured her.

"Not really?"

"Sure! I never could have resisted those eyes, dear, nor that mouth—never in the world!" And Mr. Belknap illustrated his present susceptibility to the compelling charms of the features in question in a way which caused his pretty wife to laugh and blush, and assure him (fondly) that he was a foolish boy.

"Then you really think I would better give both the girls warning?" Mrs. Belknap asked rather faintly, visions of the empty kitchen with its manifold tasks rising fearfully in her mind.

"That's what I do when there's a bad snarl in the office," Mr. Belknap told her seriously. "A good clean breeze of discipline that sweeps everything before it is a mighty good thing at times. Let 'em go. We got along all right before we ever saw Mary MacGrotty or Jane hyphen-what-you-may-call-her, either; and we shall live all the peacefuller after they're gone."

"But the missing articles—don't you think I ought to make her give them back? Isn't it a bad thing for a young girl like Jane to think she can—be so wicked with impunity?"

"It isn't 'impunity,' as you call it, if she loses her place."

"Yes, Jimmy, it is. She could get a dozen other places to-morrow. People are so nearly frantic for help that they'll take anybody. Why, Mrs. De Puyster Jones actually told me that she expected to lose a certain amount every year. She says that it used to worry her terribly when she first began housekeeping; but now she just mentally adds it to the wages, and says nothing about it, if it isn't too outrageous."

Mr. Belknap laughed dubiously. "Why, I say, Margaret, that's what they call compounding felony, or mighty near it," he said slowly. "I don't believe I could stand for that sort of thing."

"Mrs. De Puyster Jones says that, of course, she hasn't a particle of self-respect left when it comes to servants," continued Mrs. Belknap feelingly. "But she's too delicate to do her own work, and Mr. Jones won't board; so what can she do? What can I do?"

Mr. Belknap softly whistled a popular coon song as he walked about the room. Then of a sudden and with entire irrelevance he broke into loud and cheerful singing: