JANE'S CONVERTS

THE feelings which revolved around the dead body of old Mrs. Croft can be better imagined than described; everybody had wondered as to every contingency except this. In the midst of the confusion Jane moved quietly, a little white and with lips truly saddened. "And I meant to do such a lot for her,—I meant to help her so much," she murmured from time to time.

The doctor, a ponderous gentleman of great weight in all ways, was very grave. The doctor said that he had warned the daughter of such a possible ending twenty years before. "Heart failure was always imminent," he declared severely, looking upon Jane, Susan, and Mrs. Cowmull, who had driven out with him and thus become instantly a privileged person. "She never ought to have been left alone a minute during these last forty years. Even if she had lived to be a hundred, the danger was always there. Such neglect is awful." He stopped and shook his head vigorously. "Awful," he declared again with emphasis, "awful!"

"I didn't know that she had heart disease," said Jane.

"No blame attaches to you," said the doctor, veering suddenly about as to the point in discussion; "nobody can blame you. I shall exonerate you completely. Of course, if you were not aware of the state of the case, you couldn't be expected to consider its vital necessities."

"Oh, and it was so vital," sobbed Mrs. Cowmull. "Dear, sweet, old Mrs. Croft. Our sunbeam. And to go off like that. What good is life when people can die any minute. Oh! Oh!"

There was a brief pause for silent sorrow.

"I never looked for her to die," Mrs. Cowmull went on, shaking her head. "I always told Emily she'd outlive even Brother Cattermole. So many people will, you know. Dear, kind, loving friend! And now to think she's gone. I can't make it seem true. She's been alive so long. Seems only yesterday that I was up to see Katie about making a pie for the social, and our dear, sweet friend was singing her favorite song, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, all the time. What spirits she did have everywhere, except in her legs."

Susan sat perfectly quiet. The doctor took Jane's arm and led her into the hall, there to speak of the first few necessary steps to be taken. Then he returned to the sitting-room, gathered up Mrs. Cowmull and departed, saying that he would send "some practical person at once." Mrs. Cowmull, who was widely known as having practical designs on him, did not resent the implied slur at her own abilities at all.

After they were gone, there was a slight further pause, and then Susan rose slowly and went and laid her hands upon her niece's shoulders. "Oh, Jane, that religion of yours is a wonderful thing. I'm converted."

Jane started. "Converted, Auntie?"

"Yes. You were sure that it would come out all right and now see."

Then a little white smile had to cross the young girl's face. "The poor old woman," she said gently, "to think of her lying there all alone all that day. I thought that she was sleeping so quietly."

"Well, she was," said Susan.

"Yes, of course she was. It's just our little petty way of thinking that masks all of what is truly sacred and splendid behind a veil of wrong thinking. Of course she was sleeping quietly."

"It'll be sort of awful if they can't find Katie, though," Susan said next; "she left no address, and I think it's almost silly to try to hunt her up. I'm only too pleased to pay for the funeral, I'm sure, and there won't be any real reason for her returning."

"No," said Jane thoughtfully.

"And I really can look forward to Matilda's coming back now," pursued Susan. "I shan't mind a bit. Old Mrs. Croft has done that much good, anyway,—she's made me feel that Matilda's coming back is just nothing at all. You see you knew that everything was coming out all right, but I'd never had any experience with that kind of doings up till now, and it was all new to me. I was only thinking of when you and me would have to face Matilda. Matilda would have looked pretty queer if she'd come home to old Mrs. Croft to tend, and me up and lively."

Jane didn't seem to hear. "I never once thought of her dying," she said again; "oh, dear, she had so much to learn. I expected to do her such a lot of good."

"I wouldn't complain, Jane. I wouldn't find fault with a thing. Goodness, think if she'd begun singing Captain Jinks last night. I've heard that sometimes she'd sing it six hours at a stretch."

Jane shook her head. "Who is to go down and pack up that house?" she wondered.

"Oh, the house can be rented furnished. It's a nice home for anybody," said Susan, "and the rent'll buy her a lovely monument."

The funeral was fixed for the third day, and some effort made to trace the daughter-in-law. But that lady evidently didn't care to be found.

"It's hardly any use going to a great deal of expense to hunt her up," Lorenzo said to Jane, "because the house is all there is, and a thorough search with detectives would just about eat it up alive."

He probably was not wholly disinterested in his outlook, for the next bit of news that shook the community was that Lorenzo Rath had taken Mrs. Croft's house and moved in! Naturally Mrs. Cowmull was far from pleased. "Of course it means he's going to get married," she said to Miss Vane, "but what folly to take a house so soon. Who's to cook for him? And who's he going to marry? Not Emily, I know. She wouldn't have him."

Miss Vane didn't know and didn't care. "Not my Madeleine," she said promptly, for her part; "she gets a letter every day. She'll marry that man."

"Then it's Jane Grey," said Mrs. Cowmull. The town was greatly exercised, and not as positive as to Emily's state of mind as her aunt.

"It'll be one of those two," Mrs. Ball said to Miss Crining (both very superior women and much given to meeting at the grocery store). "They're both after him. Emily chases him wherever he's posing woods and cows, and the little appetite that Mrs. Cowmull says he has, after going to Mrs. Ralston's, shows what they're thinking of."

Miss Crining shook her head. "Once on a time girls were so sweet and womanly," she said.

"My," said Mrs. Ball, "I remember when my husband asked me. I almost fell flat. I'd never so much as thought of him. I was engaged to a boy named Richie Kendall, and Mr. Ball was bald, and had all those children older than I was. There was some romance about life then."

"And me," said Miss Crining, with a gentle sigh, "I never told a soul I was in love till months after he was drowned. I didn't know I was in love myself. Girls used to be like that, modest, timid."

"Mr. Rath's very severe on girls nowadays, Mrs. Cowmull says," said Mrs. Ball; "but he's blind like all men are and will get hooked when he ain't looking, like they all do."

But Lorenzo Rath didn't care about any of the gossip; he was so happy over his home. "I'll have a woman come and cook occasionally," he explained blithely to Jane and Susan, "and I'll get all my illustrating off my hands in short order."

"Do you illustrate?" Jane asked.

"Yes, that's my bread-and-butter job."

"It'll be nice to have you in the neighborhood," said Susan placidly; "to think how it's all come about, too. I'm in heaven, no matter what I'm doing. I just sit about and pray to understand more of Jane's religion. I'm gasping it down in big swallows. I think it's so beautiful how she does right, without having to take the consequences."

Jane laughed a little at that and went out to get supper.

"She's a nice girl," Lorenzo said, looking after her; "when she leaves here, what shall we do?"

"Oh, heavens, I don't know," said Susan. "I try never to think of it."

"And what is she going to do?"

"Oh, she's going back to her nursing, and I want to cry when I think that other people will have her around and I shan't. I'll be here alone with Matilda. Not but what I'm a good deal more reconciled than I was, when I thought I'd be alone with Matilda and old Mrs. Croft, too."

"Yes, that would have been bad," said Lorenzo soberly. "Well, I must be running along. I've got a lot of work to do and a lot of thinking, too."

Susan contemplated him earnestly. "Well," she said, with fervor, "when Jane goes, I'll still have you, anyway."

Lorenzo, who had just risen, stopped short at that. "Do you know an idea that I'm just beginning to hold?" he asked suddenly.

"No; how should I?"

"It's this. Why shouldn't you and I try working Jane's Rule of Life a little? I'm dreadfully impressed with a lot she says. Suppose you and I pulled together and made up our minds that she was going to stay here in some perfectly right and pleasant and proper way. How, then? Don't you believe maybe we could manage it?"

Susan stared. "But there couldn't be any perfectly right, pleasant, proper way," she said sadly, "because she wants to go."

"I'd like to try."

The aunt shook her head, sighing heavily. "It's no use. There isn't a way. Nothing could keep her. You see, she's got some family debts to pay, and she can't rest till she's paid 'em. I've begged and prayed her to stay; I've told her that her own flesh and blood has first claim, but she won't hear to any kind of sense."

"I wish that we might try," Lorenzo insisted. "I've listened to her till I just about believe she really does know what she's talking about. It seems as if it's all so logical and after all, it's the way God made the world, surely."

"Yes, I know, but you and I ain't equal to making worlds and won't be yet awhile."

"I don't care," said the young man, turning towards the door, "I'm going at it alone, then. I don't believe that any one in the world needs her as much as I do, and I'm going to have her, and that by her own methods, too."

Susan's mouth opened in widest amazement. "Mercy on us, you ain't proposing to her by way of me, are you? You don't mean that you really do want to marry her, do you?"

"No, I don't mean that I want to marry her. I mean that I'm going to marry her."

"Oh! Oh!" the aunt cried faintly. "Oh, goodness me! But I don't know why I'm surprised, for I said you was in love with her right from the start. I couldn't see how you could help but be."

"Of course I couldn't help but be. Who could? She's one of the few real girls that are left in the world these days. The regular girls with lectures and diplomas and stiff collars have spoiled the sweetest things God ever made. Men don't thank Heaven for any of these late innovations wrought in womankind."

"Oh, I know," said Susan; "my husband was old-fashioned, too. I"—she stopped short, because just then the door opened, and Jane came in.