WHY JANE SHOULD HAVE BELIEVED

THE Sunshine Nurse was long in seeking sleep that night and early to rise the next morning. She found herself suddenly metamorphosed—facing a new world—two worlds in fact. There was the world of Lorenzo's actually loving her, which was a dream from which she would surely awaken, and then there was that second world of wonder, the world of her own teaching, a world in which she started, big-eyed, at all in which she had trusted, and wondered if it could be possible that what she believed firmly and preached so ardently was really true. "It isn't setting limits to face what must be," she said over and over to herself, "and I must pay poor father's debts, and there is no possible way for me to get the money except to earn it bit by bit." The statement had gone to bed with her, and it rose with her when she rose; it looked indisputable, incontrovertible, as all fixed statements have a way of looking—and yet each time that she made it she felt hot with guilt. "It's setting limits," cried her soul, "it's saying that God can't possibly do what He pleases," and, as she listened to the strong, heaven-sent cry of rebellion against petty earthly laws, she struggled in the meshes of her own old earlier learning, the "old garment" which clings so close about us all, and which we simply must discard before we can don the new robe of Infinite Hope and Radiant Belief in God's law of Only Good for Each and Every One.

Jane always rose an hour before her aunt. The hour was spent in opening windows, brushing up and building the kitchen fire. It was always a pleasant hour, for she usually filled it to the brim with work well done and thoughts sent strongly and happily out over the coming time. But to-day all this was changed; new thoughts rioted forth on every side, and a sort of chaos took the place of her usually sunny calm. This riot and chaos is the common, logical outcome of all who feel sure that they are wiser than God. You cannot possibly set any border to His Kingdom and then be happy in that outer darkness which you have deliberately chosen for your own part. As well ask a cow to shut herself out of her pasture and rest happy in the waste beyond. "I mustn't think, because it is none of it for me—" she repeated over and over, much as if the aforesaid cow declared, "I am barred out—I can never get back—I must starve contentedly." Jane—who would have laughed at my illustration quite as you have laughed yourself—saw only distress in her own, and had to wink away so many tears that finally in maddest self-defense she rushed out doors and fled to the little garden that had, through so many years, been Susan's refuge in such a droll way.

And Lorenzo was there!

He looked very blithe and happy. "Well," he said, "have you thought it over and decided that you're right, after all?"

She was panting, and surprise flooded her face with color. "Oh—" she gasped, "oh!" and then: "Right—of course I'm right!"

He approached, his hand extended. "Right in believing, or right in mistrusting?"

She gave him her hand, and he took it. "Don't put it that way," she said; "it isn't that way."

"But, dear Jane, that's the only way to put it. It's the way you've been teaching us. Either we can look up and ahead confidently, or you're all wrong. I can't believe that you're ever even a little bit wrong, so I'm going to believe that it's all true."

"No, no—it isn't—I mean—Oh, in my case, it can't be so. Everything that I said was true, only I myself am meant to—to work—not to—to marry. It's a kind of pledge I've taken to myself. It doesn't change the teaching." Then she dragged her hand free.

Lorenzo smiled. "You can't tell me any of that. I know. I'm the happiest man in the world." Then he went on, taking up the rake and scratching a little here and there: "Like other pupils, I've surpassed my teacher. You've preached, and I practice; you can describe God's thoughts, and I think them. You're sure that He can do anything, and I know what He's going to do. I've been let straight into one of His secrets. It's been revealed to me how the world is run."

Jane stared. "How can you talk so?"

"I talk so because I know so. Everything's coming right for you."

"You're crazy," she tried to laugh.

"I've heard people say that of you. Not that it matters."

She stood watching him and considering his words. "I wouldn't let you give me the money to straighten out my father's affairs, even if you were ever so rich, you know," she said slowly. "I couldn't."

"I know it."

"And I wouldn't let Auntie pay the debts."

"I know. God doesn't require either your aunt's help or mine in this matter."

Jane's eyes moistened slightly. "Please don't make a joke of anything so hard and sad."

"I'm not joking; I'm a veritable apostle of joy. I'm as happy as I can be."

She looked at him with real wonder because his appearance certainly bore out his words. "I wish that I knew what you meant."

He dropped the rake, came to her side, and caught her hand. "Can't you trust God—can't you trust me?—won't you try?"

She looked up into his face. "I wish that I could, but how can I?"

"You ought to know. So deep and big and true a nature. Surely you ought to be able to understand your own teaching!"

"But I can't see any way."

"Your book says that one must not think of ways; one must just look straight to the good end."

"Oh, but there isn't any such end possible for me."

Lorenzo dropped her hand and laughed out loud. And then he caught her in his arms and kissed her.

She screamed. To her it was the greatest shock of her life, for no man had ever kissed her before. "Oh—oh, mercy!"

Matters were not helped much by Susan's looking over the fence just then and crying out abruptly: "Well, I declare!"

"Mrs. Ralston," said Lorenzo, not even blushing, "you're the very person we need this minute. I want to marry Jane, and she won't hear to it because of her father's debts. The debts are all right and everything's all right, only she won't believe it. I wish you'd climb the fence and help me persuade her, for although I know she'll end by marrying me, I've just set my heart on converting her to her own religion first."

Susan swung easily over the fence. "You're just right, Mr. Rath, you ought to marry her. She's the nicest person to have around the house that I ever saw; she's far too good to be a nurse. How much did your father owe, you Sunshine Jane, you? Maybe I can pay it. I will if I can."

"There," said Lorenzo; "see how easy it is to evolve money if you'd only trust a little?"

Jane looked at him and then at Susan. "I couldn't take your money, Auntie," said she, quite gently, but quite firmly. "And then, too," she added, with her roguish smile, "you've left it to Aunt Matilda."

"Yes, but dear," Susan's face became suddenly radiant, "you know I've been working your religion on her; maybe she isn't coming back at all; maybe something will happen; maybe she's going to be drowned or something like that in some perfectly right way."

"No," said Lorenzo soberly. "It isn't necessary to plan as to God's business at all. He knows. I don't think that Jane ought to take anybody's money; she ought to pay the debts with her own money, but I can't see why she can't trust and know it's coming."

"Because there's no place for it to come from," said Jane firmly.

"Unless Matilda—" Susan interposed.

"I believe I'm better at her religion than she is herself," said Lorenzo. "I declare, I believe that there's nothing that I can't get now. I wanted a house, and I worked just as the book said! I saw myself living cosily alone, and in less than a week I was living cosily alone. Now I want Jane with me in the house, and I mean to have her, and I shall have her, and there's no doubt about that; but I do wish—with all my heart—that she could rise to a higher plane."

"If that's all, I know how to manage that easily enough," said Susan. "We could get old Mr. Cattermole in for a week and raise Jane's plane with him, just like she raised mine with Mrs. Croft."

"Oh, she'll rise," said her lover quietly. "We must give her time and help her, that's all."

Jane stood doubting between them. Her aunt regarded her wistfully. "Dear me," she said, "I wonder if I could screw myself up to believing she'll come in for a fortune. I want to help, but I'm a little like her—I can't for the life of me see where it's to come from."

"But that isn't the question at all," said Lorenzo, "the question isn't how—the question is just the faith. Why, it's the corner-stone of the whole thing! It's the moving into God's world where nothing but good can be, and you know you're there because you see only good coming in all directions! Just good—nothing but good! I don't see why Jane holds back so. I know that she can get that money and get every other thing she wants in life, including me, and I'm one of the nicest fellows alive—"

"That's so—" interposed Susan.

"If she'll only put out her hand with confidence. I've studied that book till I'm full of it, and I know that I'm going to have her for my wife, and I know it absolutely, and I want her to know it, too."

Susan began to get back over the fence. "I'm going in about breakfast," she said; "the trouble with us is we all need hot coffee to brace up our souls."

"Keep on declaring the truth," Lorenzo reminded her, as she walked off upon the other side.

"I will. I'll say 'Jane is going to get some money' and 'Matilda doesn't want to come home to live,' alternately."

When she was out of hearing the two young people remained silent for a few seconds. Then the man spoke.

"Dear," his voice was very gentle, "I want to tell you something. I've had a very great experience in the last twenty-four hours. It isn't loving you—it's that I've been allowed to see a little bit of life from God's standpoint. Don't you want to know the real truth about all this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to tell you, because you'll see the lesson and learn it with me. We don't doubt that God knows all that has been or is to be, do we?—or that in our minutes of fiercest pain or trouble He looks calmly to the end beyond?"

She shook her head. "No, of course not."

"Well, dearest girl, I was allowed last night to put myself in the Deity's place and see one corner of the universe as He must see the whole."

Her eyes grew big. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this. I want you, and I understand perfectly about the money. I sat down last night and I labored with myself until I made myself know that it was yours. I can't tell you just how it came to me, but I knew it. It is yours and yours absolutely, and now I want you to realize it and believe in it without question, before I give it to you. Will you do that? I'm asking of you the faith that Jesus preached. Can you believe?"

Jane looked at him wonderingly. "You mean—"

"I mean just what I say."

"I can't receive money from you."

"It isn't my money."

"I don't understand. I only know that there is no way that I can get the money."

Lorenzo looked at her a minute, and then said slowly and very gently: "I've found Mrs. Croft's will. She left all that she had to whoever took care of her the night she died. It appears that she had a good deal more than any one supposed. It's all yours, dear. Now you see why you should have trusted."