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.