"Are you so sure?" the artist asked, looking a little amused.
Susan noticed the look. "She's a Sunshine Nurse," she explained quickly. "It's her religion to be like that. She can't help it. She's promised."
A CHANGE IN THE FEEL OF THINGS
IT didn't take long for the town to wake up to the fact that some new element had entered into its composition.
"I can't get over it, Susan Ralston's being up and about," Miss Debby Vane said distressedly to Mrs. Mead. "Why, she was 'most dead!"
"Matilda ought not to have gone away," Mrs. Mead said sternly. "Sick folks in bed can't bear a change. A new face gives them a little spurt of strength, and then when they see the old face again, they kind of give up hope and drop right off."
"Yes, I know that," said Miss Debby; "my father had a cousin die that way. There was a doctor going about in a wagon, pulling teeth and giving shocks, and he said he'd give Cousin Hannah a shock and cureher. So they took him up-stairs, and there she was dead of heart disease. They thought of prosecuting him, but the funeral coming right on they hadn't time, and then he was gone to another place, and it seemed too much bother."
"That girl is just the same kind, I believe," said Mrs. Mead; "that dreadful way of making you feel that after all what she says is pretty sensible, maybe. My Emily is awfully took with her, and Father's just crazy about her. He come down on the stage with her, and then he went out to see her. She knows how to get around men; she was frying doughnuts."
"Yes, and Mrs. Cowmull's artist was out there, and they had waffles in the middle of the morning. That's a funny kind of new religion."
"Has she got a new religion?" Miss Debby looked frightened. "I hadn't heard of it."
"Why, yes; Emily says she's got the funniest religion you ever heard of. Whatevershe wants to do or don't want to do, she says it's her religion."
"Dear me, but I should think that that would be very convenient," said Miss Debby, much impressed. "Why, my religion is always just the opposite of what I want to do or don't want to do. It says so every Sunday, you know,—'we have done those things,' and so forth."
"Hers is different," said Mrs. Mead.
"Well, I declare," repeated Miss Debby; then, suddenly, "I remember now that Madeleine said that they had waffles because Jane said that she thought waffles would taste good, and it was her religion to do whatever you thought of right off. Well, I declare!"
Both ladies stared in solemn amazement at one another.
"This'll be a nice town to live in, if she sets everybody to doing whatever you like, because it's right," Mrs. Mead said finally. "Father won't put on his coat again this summer."
"It'll make a great difference in the feeling of the town," said Miss Debby, mysteriously, "a great difference. Well, I hope it won't change Madeleine any way her family won't approve. Madeleine's in love, and I suppose it's Mr. Rath. They knew each other before, and her family don't want it. I've pieced it all out of scraps."
"Oh, dear!" said Emily Mead's mother, her face falling; "my, I hadn't heard but what he was a free man."
"Oh, no," said Miss Debby, "your sister isn't sure. But everybody else is. My own view of artists is they're deluders and snares. I give an artist a picture and a dollar once to enlarge, and that was the last I ever heard of them both—of all three."
"I wonder if Emily knows Mr. Rath's engaged," said Mrs. Mead, sadly. "Dear me, I never thought of that."
"Not engaged, but in love," corrected Miss Debby.
"Perhaps he's a real artist and changeable," suggested Mrs. Mead.
"There's no comfort in that for any one, 'cause if he'll change once, he'll change right along."
Mrs. Mead sighed very heavily. "Well, I must keep up for Father and Emily," she remarked, not tracing any very clear connection between word and deed.
"Yes," said Miss Debby, "you must, and we'll all keep a sharp eye on these new kind of ways of looking at things, for we don't know where they'll end."
The "new way of looking at things" had already been very efficacious in the house at the other end of the street. It had assumed an utterly new appearance, both outside and in.
"And I never felt nothing like the change in thefeelof it," Susan exclaimed that afternoon, as she re-arranged her belongings in her own room. "Oh, you Sunshine Jane, you, you've just sunshone into every room, and I'm so happy turning my things about I don't know what to do. Matilda wouldn't never let me turn a china cowother end to, and I've lived with some of the ornaments facing wrong for the whole of these five long years."
"It isn't me, Auntie," said Jane, washing shelves with the hearty and happy energy which she threw into every task in which she engaged; "it's the opening of the windows and the letting in of God and His sunshine together. I'll soon have time to clean the whole house, and then we'll have fun re-arranging every room. You've such pretty things, and they must be rubbed up and given a chance to play a part in the world. God never meant anything to be idle,—not even a brass andiron. If it can't work, it can shine and be cheerful, anyway. What can't smile ought to shine, you know."
"I wonder why rubbing things makes 'em bright," said Susan, opening her bonnet-box and hitting her bonnet a smart cuff to knock dust out of the folds. "I never could understand that."
"It's your individuality that you transfertill the poor dull things get enough of it to shine alone, without anybody's help."
"What a good reason," said Susan. "My, to think maybe I'll go to church again in this bonnet! Matilda was always wanting to rip it up, but something made me cling to it. It's a kind of souvenir. I wore it to husband's funeral and my last picnic, and there are lots of other pleasant memories inside it."
"I'll freshen it up with a cloth dipped in ammonia," said Jane. "Dear me, how Idoenjoy washing shelves. I love to sop the soapy water over and mop the corners, and dry the whole, and fit a clean newspaper in, and then see the closet in perfect order."
"You like to do everything, seems to me," said Susan.
"Yes, I do. I've been led to see that doing things well is about the finest way in which one can pass one's time. And I'm crazy over doing thingswell. If I fold a towel, I like to fold it just square, and if Imake a bed, I want the fold in the spread and the fold in the sheet to meet even."
"You'll make a fine wife, Jane," said Susan, gravely, "only no man'll ever appreciate the folds lying straight."
Jane laughed merrily. "I'm never going to marry; I'm one of the new sex, the creatures who are born to live alone and lend a hand anywhere. Didn't you know that?"
"That's nonsense," said Susan; "no woman's made so."
"No. It's a big fact. One of the newest facts in the world. The New Woman, you know!"
"Mercy on us," said Susan, "don't you go in for any of that nonsense. The idea of a girl like you deciding not to marry! I never heard of such a thing!"
"It's so, though," said Jane, smiling brightly; "you see, my little Order is a kind of Sisterhood. We're taught to want to help in so many homes and to never even think of a home of our own. We're taughtto love all children so dearly that we mustn't limit ourselves to one family of little ones. We're trained to be so fond of the best in every man that we see more good to be done as sisters to men than as wives."
"I don't believe Mr. Rath will agree with you," said Susan, "nor any other real nice fellow."
Jane was cutting paper for the shelves. "Yes, he will," she said, nodding confidently; "men are so scarce nowadays that they are ready to agree with any one."
"Jane,Ithink he's in love with you already." Susan's tone was very solemn.
Jane merely laughed.
Then the door-bell rang, and she had to run. Presently she was back, a little breathless. "It's Mrs. Mead and her daughter. Can you come down?"
"Yes, in a minute. You say, in a minute."
Jane ran down again with the message.
"Most remarkable," said Mrs. Mead,now dressed for calling, with her black hair put back in three even crinkles on either side, "about your aunt, you know, I mean. Why, we looked upon her as 'most dead. You know, Emily, we've always been given to understand she was nearing her end."
"It does an invalid a lot of good to have something new to think about," said Jane. "I'm very enlivening. Aunt Susan just couldn't help getting up, when she heard me upsetting her house in all directions."
"Yes, I expect it was enough to make her nervous," said Mrs. Mead, sincerely. "How long are you going to stay?"
"Until Aunt Matilda comes back."
"I don't believe she'll like these changes," said Mrs. Mead, gravely. "I should think that you'd feel a good deal of responsibility. It's no light matter to leave a shut-up house and an invalid in bed to a niece and come home to find the house open and the invalid all over it."
"And a man coming in and having wafflesin the morning," said Emily Mead, with a smile meant to be arch.
Jane laughed. "That was dreadful, wasn't it?" she said, twinkling—"it was all so impromptu and funny. And everybody had such a good time. It just popped into my head, and you see it's my religion to have to do anything that you think will make people happy, if you see a chance."
"Yes, we've heard about your religion," said Mrs. Mead; "dear me, I should think you'd get into a lot of trouble! Waffles in the morning would upset some folks, except on Sunday."
"Perhaps most people haven't enough religion to manage them week-days," Jane suggested.
"My aunt, Mrs. Cowmull, says Mr. Rath could hardly eat any lunch," observed Emily, smiling some more.
"Oh, dear!" said Jane, "but I'm not surprised. Aunt Susan couldn't, either."
Mrs. Mead coughed significantly. "Susan Ralston's pretty delicate to stand many newideas, I should think," she began, but stopped suddenly as Susan entered, and viewed her with an expression of shocked surprise.
"Why, Mrs. Ralston, I'd no idea you were so well. Where have you kept yourself these last years, if you were so well?"
"In my own room," said Susan, with dignity. "I didn't see no special call to come down. Matilda knew where everything was, but Jane doesn't, so I've changed my ways for a little."
Jane took her hand and pressed it affectionately. The sunshine seeds were sprouting finely. "Don't you want to come out into the garden with me?" she asked Emily Mead, and Emily rose at once. "I thought auntie would enjoy visiting alone with her old friend," she added, as they passed through the hall.
"What are you, anyway?" Emily asked curiously. "I've heard you were a trained nurse,—are you?"
"I'm one of the brand-new women,"said Jane; "not a Suffragette, nor an advanced anything, but just a creature who means to give her life up to teaching happiness as an art."
"Yes, I heard that. But how do you do it?" asked Emily Mead.
"By being happy and thinking happy thoughts and doing happy things."
Emily considered. "But don't you ever have hard things to do?"
"Never. I enjoy them all—I love to work."
Emily looked at her wonderingly. "But washing dishes?—We don't keep a girl, and I hate washing dishes. What would you say to them?"
Jane laughed. "What, those two lovely tin pans and that nice boiling kettle? And all the dirty plates sinking under the soap-suds and then piling up under the clean hot water. And the shining dryness and the putting them on the shelves all in their own piles. And then the knowing that God wanted those dishes washed, and thatyou've done them just exactly as He'd like to see them done. Why, I think dish-washing is grand!"
Emily opened her eyes widely. "How funny you are! I never heard such talk before! But, then, you've lived in a big city and learned to think in a big way. You wouldn't see dish-washing so if you'd done it all your life and never been told it was nice. You couldn't."
"But you've been told now," said Jane, "and no work need ever seem horrid to you again. Just look at it in my way after this."
"But all work seems horrid to me. I'd like to marry an awfully rich man and never see this place again. I hate it."
Jane thought a minute; then said in sweet, low, even tones: "You won't evolve any man fit to marry out of that spirit, you know."
The other girl stared at her. "Evolve!"
"Yes. Don't you know that every minute in this world is the result of all theminutes that have gone before, and that who we marry is part of a result—not just an accident?"
"What?"
"Don't you know that? Don't you understand?"
"Not a bit. Tell me what you mean?"
"It's too long to explain right this minute, because one can't tell such things quickly, and if you've never studied them, you haven't the brain-cells to receive them. You see brain-cells are the houses for thoughts, and they have to be built and ready before the thoughts can move in. That's what they told me, when I was learning."
Emily looked at her in bewilderment.
"It's very interesting," said Jane. "I think that it's the most interesting thing in the whole world. You see, I didn't have any life at all; I was an orphan and not very bright. And then I happened to get hold of a book that said that all the life there was in the world was mine, ifI'd just take it. So I wrote to the man who wrote the book—"
"How did you ever dare?"
"Why, I knew that the man who wrote that book would help any one—he couldn't have written the book if he hadn't been made to help people—and I asked him how I could begin."
"What did he answer?"
"He said: 'Seize every chance to prove your mind the master of your own body first, and when you are thoroughly master of yourself, you can master all else.'"
"What did he mean?"
"Well, I took it that he meant me to do anything that I thought of, right off, and that if I got in the habit of sweeping all work out of my small way, I'd soon be given a chance at big work in a big way."
"And were you?"
"Yes. I began to get through so quick—I lived with an uncle and helped his wife with the sewing and the children—that I had some spare time, and I went into thekitchen and learned to cook. Then one of the children was ill, and the doctor thought I'd make a good nurse, so he got me into a hospital, and I met a woman there who had all the books that I wanted to read and who just took hold and helped me right out. I saw that I didn't want to be a sick-nurse, because there's such a lot of humbug and such a lot that's silly, and my friend said that I was one who would evolve opportunities—"
"What does that mean?"
"Evolve means to sort of develop out of the world and yourself together at the same time."
"I don't understand."
"Why, if you want anything, you want it because it's there, and you can get it if you've got the strength and perseverance to build a road to it."
"What!"
"I mean just what I say. We can get anything, if we have sufficient will-power to build a way right straight to it."
"Suppose I want to marry a millionaire?"
"It would mean a lot of well-directed effort, and the effort would slowly train you to want something much better than to live rich and idle." Jane paused a minute, and Emily looked at her curiously. "If you want to marry a millionaire bad enough to start in and make yourself all over new, you'll have such control over your future that I think you'll get something much better than a millionaire."
"I never heard any one like you in all my life," said Emily Mead.
"I'd be so glad to help you straight along," Jane said. "I've got two books with me, and you can read one and then the other. Then you'll get where you can get the meaning out of the Bible, and then you'll begin to see the meaning of everything. The world gets so wonderful. You see miracles everywhere. You feel so well. The sun shines so bright. Life becomes so lovely."
Emily looked at her with real wonder.
"How did you happen to come here?" she asked.
"Oh, that came long after all the rest of the story. One day I remembered that my mother had two sisters, and I wrote to them. My letter arrived just as Aunt Matilda's arm began to trouble her, and she asked me if I could come for a visit. You see that was another opportunity I evolved."
Emily seized her hand impulsively. "I'm so glad that you came. I'm going to try, and you'll help me?"
"Yes, indeed, I will. Would you like one of the books right now?"
"Oh, I should."
"I'll get it for you, and then I'll tell you some day about the doctor I met and his Sunshine Order."
They went towards the house. "You mustn't expect to understand everything right off, you know," Jane said to her gently. "You see this is all new to you, and that means that you can't any moreunderstand right off than you could paint a picture right off. You have to learn gradually."
"But I mean to learn," said Emily.
They went in the door, and Jane ran upstairs and fetched the book. "There!" she said, "you read it, and I'll help you all I can. You see the thing is to learn with your whole heart to do God's will, and then, in some strange, subtle way, you get to feel what is coming and to sort of shape all. It's so fascinating and thrilling to realize that what you want is marching towards you as fast as you can march towards it."
"What do you want?" Emily asked.
"I want to do exactly what I'm doing," said Jane, very quietly. "I've passed wanting anything else. I want lots of chances to teach and help,—that's all."
"Don't you want to marry?"
"Oh, no,—I want to be able to teach and help everywhere. I don't want things for myself, somehow."
"How strange!"
They went into the sitting-room.
"Oh, Jane," Susan cried, "how I have enjoyed hearing about everybody in town! Sister never told me about Eddy King's running off with the store cash or Mrs. Wilton's daughter going to cooking-school, or one thing."
"We must be going," said Mrs. Mead, rising; "we'll come again, though. It's good to see you up, Mrs. Ralston, and I only hope you may stay up. You know Katie Croft's mother-in-law got up just as you have and then had a stroke that night."
"Oh, is old Mrs. Croft dead?"
"No, she isn't," said Mrs. Mead; "if she was, she wouldn't be such a warning as she is."
"Dear, dear," said Susan, "think of all I've missed. Has she got it just in her legs or all over? Matilda never told me."
"Legs," said Mrs. Mead, "and it's affected her temper. Katie has an awful time with her."
"Dear, dear," said Susan again,—"and, oh, Jane, a boy I've known since he was a baby has had his skull japanned and nearly died. Matilda's never told me a thing!"
"Well, she didn't know much, you know," said Mrs. Mead; "she kept herself about as close as she kept you. We were given to understand pretty plainly that we weren't wanted to call."
"Think of that now," said Susan, "and me up-stairs, feeling all my friends had forgot me!"
"Everybody'll come now," said Mrs. Mead; "folks will be glad to see you so well. We were told you never got up and hardly ate enough to keep a cat."
"An ordinary cat," corrected Emily; "Miss Matilda's always told what a lot your cat ate."
"He is an eater," said Susan, crinkling a bit about the eyes; "but I eat, too, now, I can tell you."
After they were gone, Jane came back into the sitting-room. Her aunt was standingby the window. "It's so beautiful to be down-stairs," she said, without turning. "My goodness, and to think that only a week ago I laid up-stairs wanting to die."
"You can thank Aunt Matilda that you didn't die," said Jane, going and putting her arm around her. "If she had kept you thinking of all the illnesses in town, you'd have died long ago. Sick thoughts are more catching than diseases. But we don't need to talk of that now."
"No, indeed we don't," said Susan, "for there's Mr. Rath coming."
Jane gave a little start. "I wonder what for," she said.
"What for!" Susan's tone was full of deep meaning; "why, he's fallen dead in love with you, Jane, that's what it means, and I don't wonder, for you're the nicest girl I ever saw."
"Oh, Auntie!" said Jane, quite red. "The very idea!"
LORENZO RATH
IT wasn't to be supposed for a minute that Lorenzo Rath, a real live young man and an artist, shouldn't take first place in the town talk. Jane's remarkable religion might attract the attention of a few who were sufficiently religious themselves to be naturally shocked over the waffles and depressed over the invalid's recovery, but Lorenzo was of interest to every one.
"If he ain't took already, there's a fine chance for Emily," Mr. Cattermole said benevolently to his daughter. Being a man, he naturally supposed that Mrs. Mead would never have come by such an idea if she hadn't had a bright old father to point it out to her.
"Emily doesn't want to marry," saidMrs. Mead, compressing her lips and expanding her dignity simultaneously; "she wouldn't marry an artist, anyway."
"Maybe he ain't much of an artist," said Mr. Cattermole, with a tendency to look on the bright side. "Why don't Emily want to marry? I thought girls always wanted to marry. They did when I was young."
"It's different nowadays," said Mrs. Mead, with condescending reserve. "You don't understand, Father, but nothing is like it used to be. The world is getting all changed. When Emily was an only child, she was looked upon as very odd, but most women have an only child nowadays. Life is quite different."
"I'd like to see Emily married," said Mr. Cattermole, thoughtfully.
"Emily has had plenty of chances," said her mother, waving the brave, tattered mother-lie that seems to cover over such cruel wounds.
"Has she really?" said Mr. Cattermole,in genuine surprise. "I didn't know that. And she wouldn't have 'em! Laws sakes! Who, for instance?"
"No one you knew," said his daughter, telling the truth then.
"Sarah knew 'em, I suppose?" (Sarah was Mrs. Cowmull.)
"No, no one Sarah knew."
"Think of that now! Why, I s'posed there wasn't nothing Sarah didn't know."
In voicing this opinion Mr. Cattermole voiced the town opinion, too. It was popularly supposed that Sarah Cowmull always knew everything. But she didn't know the status of Lorenzo Rath's heart, and Lorenzo Rath himself puzzled her not a little.
Lorenzo puzzled everybody, mainly because he was so open and simple that even a child must have suspected him of keeping something back. Such frankness was unthinkable, such innocence incredible.
"Why, he's gallivanting all over with Madeleine, and yet she's gotten anotherman's picture on her table!" said Miss Debby to Katie Croft.
"And he's skipping in Mrs. Ralston's gate at all hours," said Katie Croft—"no kind of ceremony to him. The other day he see mother in the window, and he waved his hat at her and give her an awful turn. She don't see well, and thought he threw a stone at her. She ain't used to city ways; she's used to country ways. I had to let her smell camphor for a good hour, and while she was smelling, the kitchen fire went out. I wish he'd keep his hat on his head another time. My life's hard enough without having a artist suddenly set to, to cheer up mother."
"What do you think of Mrs. Ralston's niece? Think she's nice?"
"Nice! With Susan Ralston about as lively as a cricket! I don't think much of such new ways. I don't know whatever Matilda will say. She's just got life all systematized, and now here's Susan up and out of bed. I'm so scared the girl'll comeover and go at mother, I don't know what to do."
"My, suppose Mrs. Croft was to be up and about!" said Miss Debby, opening her eyes widely. "Whatever would you do?"
"Do! I know what I'd do." Young Mrs. Croft looked dark and mysterious. "I know just exactly what I'll do. And I'm all ready to do it, and if I'm interfered with, I will do it,—good and quick, too."
"How is old Mrs. Croft now?" Miss Debby asked.
"Oh, she's grabbin' as ever. I never see such a disposition. She's always catching at me or the cat or something. Seems to consider it a way of attracting attention. Crazy folks has such crazy ideas, and she's crazy,—crazy as a loon."
Katie Croft took up her market basket and went on up the street. Miss Debby stayed behind to wait for the noon mail. "Katie's so bitter," she said to herself,shaking her head; "she ought to be more grateful for being supported."
Miss Debby forgot that there are few things so irritating in this world as being supported. It is a situation which has become especially unpopular lately, particularly with women and political motives.
But no old worn-out aphorism held for one minute in the breezy bloom of the House Where Jane Lived.
"Oh, I'm so happy," Susan exclaimed many times daily, "I'm so happy. I never felt nothing like your sunshining in all my life before, you Sunshine Jane, you! I feel like my own cupboards, all unlocked and aired and nice and used again."
Jane stopped caroling as she kneaded bread and laughed—which sounded equally pleasant.
"I'm as happy as you are, Auntie; it's so nice to be in heaven."
"I used to think maybe I'd die suddenly and find myself there some day," said Susan. "I'm glad I didn't."
"It's better to live suddenly than to die suddenly," said Jane, merrily; "when people are awfully bothered sometimes, I've heard their friends say: 'But if you died suddenly, it would work out somehow,' and I wanted to say: 'Why not live suddenly instead of dying suddenly, and then everything's bound to come out splendidly.'"
"Oh, Jane, what a grand idea,—to live suddenly! That's what I've done, surely."
"Yes," said Jane, "that's what I did, too. Instead of fading out of life, we just bloomed into life. It's just as easy, and a million times more fun."
"And it's all so awfully agreeable," said Susan. "My things look so nice, all set different, and it's so pleasant having folks coming in, and I like it all, and we haven't to fuss with the garden."
"I attend to the garden!" cried a voice outside, and a mysterious hand shoved a basket of peas over the window-ledge.
"I know who that is," said Susan; "it'sthat boy, and he's smelt cinnamon rolls and come to lunch. How do you do?"
Lorenzo, brown and merry, was getting in at the window.
"Why, you've really been weeding!" exclaimed Susan.
"Of course! I've tended the garden ever since you gave it up."
"I declare! Well, I never. Jane, we must give him a bite of something."
"Yes, that's what I came for," said Lorenzo, cheerfully, "cookies, jelly-roll,—anything simple and handy. Madeleine and I were out walking, discussing our affairs, and when I stopped for the garden, she went on for her mail. I'm awfully hungry."
"People say you're engaged to her," said Susan. Jane turned to get the tin of cookies.
"Yes, naturally. People say so much. She is a pretty girl, isn't she?—but then there's Emily Mead. I must look at myself on all sides and consider carefully.Old Mr. Cattermole took me to drive yesterday and told me that he was healthy and his dead wife was healthy and that, except for what killed him, Mr. Mead was healthy, too; and there was Emily, perfectly healthy and the only grandchild, and why didn't I come over often,—it wasn't but a step."
"Well, you do beat all," said Susan. Jane offered the tin of cookies. Lorenzo took six. They were all laughing.
Later, when he'd gone away, Susan said, almost shyly this time: "Jane, I don't want to interfere, but heisin love."
"With Madeleine?"
"With you."
"Auntie," Jane came to her side, "you mustn't speak in that way about me. I can't marry,—not possibly. I'm a Sunshine Nurse, and I shall be a Sunshine Nurse till I die. I'll make homes happy, but I shall never have one of my own."
Susan looked frightened and timid. "But why?"
"For many reasons. And all good ones."
There was that in the young girl's tone that ended the subject for the time being.
But Susan thought of it a great deal, and alone in her room that night, Jane thought, too. She had made herself ready for bed, and then sat down by the window, clasping her hands on the sill. Lorenzo Rath was buoyantly dear and jolly, and she realized that he was the nicest man that she had ever met. It had all been fun, great fun, and she had enjoyed it mightily. But with all her learning Jane was not so very much farther along the Highway to Happiness than some others. In many cases she was only a holder of keys as yet—the distinct knowledge to be gained by unlocking secrets with their aid was as yet not hers. To hold the keys and look at the doors is to realize what power means,—but to unlock is to use it. Jane was still a novice; she left the doors locked and was content to hold the keys, and no more.
The next night Lorenzo appeared again."I'm half-dead," he said. "I've tramped twelve miles, sketching."
"Dear, dear," said Susan, "seems like nobody in this world ever wants what's close to."
"Sometimes it's no use to want what's close to," said Lorenzo, "or else what's close to is like Emily Mead, and you just ache to run."
"Emily Mead is a very nice girl," said Jane, in a tone clearly reproachful.
Lorenzo just laughed. But then Susan made some excuse to slip away. "I wonder if you'd help me a little," he said then, hesitating a bit.
"Is it something that I can do? Of course I'll help you if I can."
"It's something very necessary."
"Necessary?"
"To my welfare and happiness."
"What is it?"
"I think—I'm—falling in love."
"Oh, dear," Jane was carefully tranquil.
"I've never really been in love in mylife, so I can't be sure. But I think it's that."
Jane said nothing. The room was getting dark.
"I've never seen any one so pretty in all my life as Miss Mar," said the young artist, slowly. "You know we're old friends."
"Oh, she's lovely," said Jane, with sudden fervor.
"I thought that we might make up little picnics and walks and things?" hesitated the young man.
"Of course," said Jane, heartily. "And you can come here all you like. Auntie likes you both so much."
Lorenzo Rath stood by the door. "Were you ever in love?" he asked bluntly.
"No," said Jane. "I've never had the least little touch of it."
"Haven't you ever thought about it?"
"No, I've never had time. I've never seen any man that I could or would marry."
"Never?"
"Never."
"That's too bad," said Lorenzo Rath slowly. "Seems to me you'd make such a splendid wife."
She laughed a little. Then she had to wink quickly to drive back tears which leapt suddenly.
"I won't say any more," said Lorenzo. She thought that he did not care to speak of Madeleine to her.
Then she went. And later she found herself sitting in her own room again, sitting by the same window, thinking. "Poor Emily Mead and her illusory millionaire! I'm about as silly as she is," thought Jane. "And yet I know it's higher and more beautiful to make life lovely for others than to make it lovely for one's self." She sighed because the reflection—all altruistic as it was—was not quite the truth, and she was true enough herself to feel jarred by the slightest cross-shadow of falsehood. Truth plays as widely and freely as the sunbeams themselvesand goes as straight to the heart of each and all.
Finally she opened a little book and read aloud a few pages to herself in a low tone. "I know I'm on the right path," she said, when she had closed the book; "the thing is to stick resolutely to keeping on straight ahead. And I must be absolutely content with all that comes. You have to be content if you're going to grow in goodness, for you have to know that you've been trying and been successful." She sat still a while longer and then rose with a deep, long breath. "Well, to-day's been something, and to-morrow I'll be something better, I know."
The truth did shine then, and she went to bed calmed, but was hardly stretched down between the cool sheets when Susan rapped at the door.
"Come in."
"Oh, Jane, I can't sleep. I've got to thinking of when Matilda comes back, and I'm scared blue."
A NEW OUTLOOK ON MATILDA
THE next morning Susan looked half-sheepish and half-anxious. "I just couldn't help it, Jane. I laid in bed so long, thinking, and then it come over me what life was going to be when she was back and you gone and—well—I just couldn't help coming. I felt awful."
Jane was busy with breakfast. "I know, Auntie, I know. I ought to have thought of Aunt Matilda sooner. Half her stay is over."
"Oh, my, I should say it was," wailed Susan; "that's what scares me so. We're so happy, and the time is going so fast. It's about the most awful thing I ever knew."
Jane began beating eggs for an omelette.
"We never were one bit alike," Susanintoned mournfully; "we were always so different, and then when husband died, there was just nothing to do but for us to live together. She's my only sister, and it's right that I should humor her, but, oh my, what a scratch-about life she has led me. I was getting to feel more like a mouse than a woman—soon as I got a bite, I'd begin to tremble and to listen and then how Ididrun!"
"But it will be all so different when she comes back," Jane said cheerily. "She'll be very different, and so will you. It'll be just like I told you last night."
"I know,—I know. But somehow I can't see it as you do. I'm all upset. And I'm so happy without her. We're so happy. The house looks beautiful. You've just made everything over. I declare, Jane, I never saw anything like you. All my old things have turned new, and so pretty. I feel like a bride. That is, I feel like a bride when I ain't thinking of Matilda."
"It looks very nice, surely," said Jane, smiling. "Your things were so pretty, anyhow. But what I was gladdest about was to really get it all opened up and fresh. I didn't want any one to come while it was so gloomy. The whole town may call now."
"They do, too," said Susan, diverted for the minute; "they certainly do. Oh, it is so nice, I so adore to hear all about things again. Matilda just shut everybody out. She didn't like company."
"She was pretty busy, you know."
"She hadn't any more to do than you have. She hadn't so much to do as you have, because she didn't do a thing you do."
"But you were ill. She was always up and down stairs—"
"No, she wasn't, Jane. No, she wasn't."
"Well, she had your meals to carry upstairs."
"I don't call it meals to run with a teacup. Meals!Suchmeals! It's a wonder I didn't die. She'd turn anything upsidedown on a plate and something else upside down on that, and call it a meal for me. I was about sick, just from how she fed me. If I said something was cooked too dry, she emptied the tea-kettle into it next time; and if I said anything was too wet, she put on fresh coal and left it in the oven over night. If I said the room was too light, she shut it up as dark as a pickpocket; and if I said it was too dark, she turned the sun into my eyes. She's my only sister and I must humor her, but I've had a very hard time, Jane, and I don't blame myself for waking up with my teeth all of a chatter over the thought of living with her again."
Jane had their breakfast ready now on the table by the window. "Come and sit down," she said; "we'll talk while we eat. It's like I told you last night,—there must be a hitch somewhere. Of course, God has a good reason for you and Aunt Matilda living together. He doesn't allow accidents in His world."
"Perhaps He wasn't thinking. I can't believe that anybody would deliberately put anybody in the house with Matilda—not if they knew Matilda. I didn't know what she'd grown into myself when she first came to take care of me, because I was a little poorly. It was to save spending on a nurse, you know. They're such trying, prying things, nurses are."
"I'm a nurse, you know."
"My goodness, I didn't mean your kind; I meant the regular kind."
Jane was laughing. "But I mustn't laugh," she said, after a minute; "we must go to work. Let's see if we can find out how it all began. Didn't you and Aunt Matilda get on nicely at first?"
Susan considered. "Well, I don't believe we did. She was always so very sparing. Husband was sparing, and of course I'd had a good many years of it, but when your husband's gone and you've got the property yourself and have left it to an only sister who takes care of you, youdon't like her being even more sparing,—putting you on skim-milk right from the first and chopping the potato peelings in the hash."
"But there must have been some good in the situation, or it wouldn't have been. When there's a wrong situation, the cure lies in hunting out the good, not in talking over the bad."
"You won't find any good in Matilda and me living together,—not if you hunt till Doomsday." Susan took a big sip of coffee and then shook her head hard.
"There's good in everything."
"I don't know what it was here, then. I was all ready to die, and the doctor said I couldn't live, and when I found out how Matilda was counting on it, I just made up my mind to live just to spite her. But it's been awful hard work."
Jane turned and seized her hand. "Well, maybe that's the reason for the situation, then. You see if she'd been different, you'd have died, but being a person who made you mad, you stayed alive."
Susan laughed a little. "I've been mad enough, I know," she went on; "it's awful to be up-stairs the way I've been and have to prowl down-stairs and run off with your food like a dog in an alley. I was always watching till I saw Matilda over that second fence and then racing for something to eat. I've been very hungry often and often, Jane, very hungry indeed,—and in my own house, too."
The tears came into the girl's eyes. "Poor Auntie!" she said. "Well, it's all over now and won't ever come back. You must believe me when I say so. Old conditions never return. The wheel can't turn backward. That mustn't be."
"But how'll it help it when Matilda's visit gets over?"
Jane rested her chin on her hands and looked out of the window. "I'll have to get you on to a plane where you can't live as you did ever again," she said.
"On a plane!—" Susan stared.
"A plane is a kind of grade in life. Wekeep going up them like stairs, and the quieter and happier people live, the higher is the plane on which they are. It's very simple, when you come to understand it. It's sort of like a marble staircase built out of a marsh and on up a mountain. You can stand down in the mud, or step higher in the reeds, or step higher in the water (generally it's hot water," Jane interrupted herself to say with a little smile). "Or out on the dry earth, or higher where it's flowers, or higher or higher. But every time you get up a step you leave all the mess of all the lower steps behind you forever. Do you understand?"
"No, I don't."
"Why, don't you see that if you lift yourself higher than your surroundings, of course you'll have other conditions around you and be really living another life? We can't possibly be bound by conditions lower than our souls. It's a law. I'll help you to understand it, and then it will help you to not be at all troubled over Aunt Matilda.You'll be above her. Don't you see? One can always get out of a disagreeable life by lifting one's self above it."
"But I did stay up-stairs," said Susan, with beautiful literalness. "I think it's awful to have to keep a plane above any one, when the whole house is yours."
"I didn't mean that," said Jane. "I meant that mentally you must get above her. It isn't in words or in thoughts,—you mustbeabove her. You must get free. I must help you. You can do it. Anybody can do it. And as soon as you are free in your spirit, your life will change. Our daily life follows our thoughts. Our thoughts make a pattern, and life weaves it. The world of stars that we can't hardly grasp at all is all God's thought. The life in this house was your thought and Aunt Matilda's."
"It wasn't mine," said Susan quickly; "it was hers."
"Well, it's mine now," said Jane. "That's the true business of the SunshineNurses. They must get a new thought into a house and get it to growing well. Then they'll leave the true sunshine there forever after."
Susan's eyes were very curious—very bright. "I declare I don't see how you'll do it here," she said. "I can't look at Matilda any new way, as I know of. Whatever she does, she does just exactly as I don't like it."
"I suppose that you try her, too."
"Well, I didn't die; of course she minded that. But I couldn't die. You can't die just to order."
"No, of course not; I didn't mean that." Jane was quite serious. "I don't blame you at all for not doing that."
Susan had finished and rose from the table. "Let's leave the dishes and go out in the yard," she said. "I'm awfully anxious to keep on at this till we find a way out, if you think that you can; I go about wild when I think of her. I'm ready for anything except staying in bed any more."
"Oh, that's all over," said Jane. "You're off the bed-plane now, and don't you see how much higher you've got already? The next step is to fix yourself so securely on this happy one that you know that it's yours and you can't leave it. You see, you feel able to go back down again, and as long as you feel that way, it's possible. One has to bar out the wrong kind of life forever, and then of course it's over."
"But she is coming back," said Susan, "and I can't live any more on gobbles of milk and cold bits swallowed while I'm getting up-stairs three steps to the jump."
Jane looked at her. "I expect that exercise was awfully good for you, Auntie," she said seriously. "You've probably gotten a lot of health and interest out of it. Don't forget that."
"Well, maybe; but I don't want any more." Susan's tone was terribly earnest.
"It's all over then," said Jane, slowly and with emphasis; "if you truly andhonestly don't want any more, then it must be all over. The thing to do now is to build a firm connection between ourselves and it's being all over."
"I don't quite understand what you mean," said Susan, "but something's got to be done, of course, because otherwise she'll come home, and oh, my, her face when she sees me up and around!"
Jane knit her brows. "You see, Auntie," she said slowly, "there's only one thing to do. We've got to change ourselves completely; we've to get where we want her to come home and where we look forward to it—"
Susan stopped short and lifted up both hands. "Gracious, we can't ever do that! It isn't in humanity."
"Yes, we can do it," said Jane firmly; "people can always do anything that they can think out, and if we can think this out straight, we can do it."
"How?"
"It isn't easy to see in just the firstminute, but I understand the principle of it and I know that we can work it, for I've seen it done. You do it by getting an entirely new atmosphere into the house."
"But you've done that already," interrupted Susan. "It isn't musty anywhere any more, and there's such a kind of a happy smell instead."
"I don't mean that kind of an atmosphere. I mean a change of feeling in ourselves. We've got to somehow make ourselves all over; we must really and truly be different."
"But I am made over, and you were all right, anyhow."
"No, I'm not all right," said Jane firmly. "I'm very wrong. I'm letting silly thoughts with which I've no business torment me dreadfully, and I'm not driving them out with any kind of resolution. Then we're both doing wrong about Aunt Matilda. We're making a narrow little black box of our opinion and crowding her into it all the time. There's nothing sodreadful as the way families just chain one another to their faults. Outsiders see all the nice things, and we have lots of courage to always live up to their opinions, but families spend most of their time just nailing those they love best into pretty little limits. You and I are so happy together, and we're changing ourselves and one another every day, but we never think that Aunt Matilda's also having experience and changing herself, too. We kind of forbid her to grow better."
"You won't find anything that will change Matilda very quick, Jane. She's a dreadful person to stick to habits; she's drunk out of the blue cup and give me the green one for these whole five years."
"The change in the atmosphere of the house," said Jane slowly, "must be complete. We must never say one more word about her that isn't nice, and we mustn't even think unkind thoughts. We must talk about her lots and look forward to her coming back—"
"Oh, heavens, I can't," gasped Susan.
"We'll begin to-day on her room—"
"Then you'll make her madder than a hatter, sure; she can't bear to have her room touched."
"I'm going to make it the prettiest room in the house," said Jane resolutely. "I'm going to brush and clean and mend and fix all those clothes she's left hanging up, and I'm going to love her dearly from now on."
Susan sat still, her lips moving slightly, but whether with repressed feeling or trembling sentiment it would be impossible to say. "She looked awful cute when she was little and wore pantalettes," she said finally.
"Bravo!" cried Jane, running to her and kissing her. "There's a fine victory for you, and now,"—her face brightening suddenly,—"I've got an idea of what we can do to lift us right straight up into a new circle of life. What do you say to our making the little back parlor over into a bedroom, and—"
"—taking Mr. Rath to board?" cried Susan joyfully. "Oh, I am sure that he wanted to come all along."
Jane laughed outright. "No, indeed, the very idea! No, what I thought of was inviting that poor old Mrs. Croft here for a week and giving her and her daughter-in-law a rest from one another."
Susan gave a sharp little yell. "Why, Jane Grey, I never heard the beat! Why, she can't even feed herself!"
"It would be a way to change the atmosphere of the house; it's just the kind of thing that would change us all—"
"I should think it would change us all," interrupted Susan; "why, she threw a cup of tea at Katie's back last week. Katie said she couldn't possibly imagine what had come over her,—she was leaning out to hook the blinds."
"It would be a Bible-lovely thing to do," Jane went on slowly. "You or I could feed her, and I'd take care of her. I'm a nurse, you know!"
"Jane! Well, you beat all! Well, I never did! Old Mrs. Croft. Why, they say you might as well be gentle with a hornet."
"Maybe she has her reasons; maybe it's,—Set a hornet to tend a hornet, for all we know. Anyway, it's come to me as some good to do, and when I think of any good that I can do, I have to do it,—else it's a sin. That's my religion."
"That religion of yours'll get you into a lot of hot water along through life." Susan's tone was very grave. "And you've never seen old Mrs. Croft, or you'd never speak of her and religion in the same breath. They've got a cat she caresses, and some days she caresses it for all she's worth. I've heard the cat being caressed when it was quiet, myself, many's the time. You can't use that religion of yours on old Mrs. Croft; she isn't a subject for religion. She's one of that kind that the man in the Bible thanked God he wasn't one of them."
"My religion is what brought me here to you," said Jane gently. "You aren't really sorry that I learned it, are you, Auntie?"
Susan's eyes moistened quickly. She gasped, then swallowed, then made up her mind. "Well, Sunshine Jane," she said resignedly, "when shall we get her?"
"We'll put her room in order to-morrow morning, and I'll go and ask her in the afternoon."
"Oh, dear!" said Susan, with a world of meaning in the two syllables. "I hope she'll enjoy the change."
Jane laughed. "Goodness, Auntie, I never saw any one pick up new ideas as quick as you do. I was months learning how to make myself over, and you do it in just a few hours. You must have laid a big foundation of self-control up there in bed."
Susan sighed, uncheered. "It kept me pretty sharp, I tell you," she said; "when you're always hungry and have to getyour food on the sly and be positively sure of never being found out, it does keep you in trim being spry pretty steady."
"May we come in?" asked voices at the gate. It was Lorenzo Rath and Madeleine. "We wanted to see how you were getting on to-day," the latter called.
"We've been changing the furniture and the atmosphere," said Susan, trying bravely to smile. "Jane is turning everything around and bringing the bright new side out."
"If you'll come and help me wash the breakfast dishes and then make biscuits," Jane said to Madeleine, "I'll ask you both to lunch."
"I want to learn how to do everything, of course," said Madeleine.
"And why shouldn't we go down to the garden?" suggested Lorenzo to Susan. "You'll point out the things you want to-day, and I'll pull 'em up."
"But there are fences to climb," said Jane.
"Fiddle for fences," said her aunt; "he'll go ahead, and I'll skim over 'em like a squirrel. I never made anything of fences."
So they divided the labor.
"The house looks so pretty," said Madeleine, as she and Jane went through to the kitchen. "How do you ever manage it,—with just the same things, too?"
Jane glanced about. "Why, there's a right place for everything, and if you just stand back a bit and let the things have time to think, they'll tell you where to put them. There was an old blue vase in the dining-room that was pretty weak-minded, but I was patient and carried it all over the place till finally it was suited on top of the what-not in the corner of the hall. The trouble with most things is that we hurry them too much at first, and then we don't help them out of their false position later."
"Oh, Jane, you are so delightfully quaint. You must tell Mr. Rath that. It's thekind of speech that will just charm the soul right out of an artist."
Jane was deep in the flour-bin. "But I don't want to charm his soul. I'll leave that to you."
"To me! Why, he doesn't care a rap about me."
"Well, then, to Emily Mead."
"Emily Mead! Oh, my dear, you have put a lot of new ideas into her head! She says that you told her that any one could get anything that he or she wanted."
"And so they can."
"Suppose she wants Mr. Rath?"
"If she wants him in the right way, she'll have him."
"I don't like that way of speaking of men," said Madeleine, dipping her white fingers into the flour and beginning to chip the butter through it. "Don't you think it's horrid how girls speak of men nowadays? I do."
"Of course I do," said Jane. "But one drops into the habit just because everybodydoes it. I'll never be married myself, and it's partly because I think it's all being so dragged down. Instead of two people's knowing one another and liking one another better till finally a big, beautiful, holy secret sort of dawns on them and makes the world all over new, girls just go on and act as if men were wild animals to be hunted and caught and talked about, or married and made fun of. I don't think all these new ideas and new ways for women have made women a bit more womanly. When I had to earn my living, I picked out work that a man couldn't do, and that I wouldn't be hurting any man by doing. I'm sorry for men nowadays. And I think women lose a lot the way some of them go on."
"After all, there can't be anything nicer than to be a woman, can there?" said Madeleine, stirring as the other poured in ingredients. "I've always been glad that I was a woman. I think that a woman's life is so sweet, and it's beautiful to be protectedand cared for." The pink flew over her cheeks at the words.
Jane's lashes swept downward for a minute, then rose resolutely. "Or to protect and care for others. It always seems to me as if a woman was the sort of blessed way through which a man's love and strength and care go to his children. Men are so helpless with children, but they do such a lot for wives, and then the mothers pass it on to the little ones."
"Life's lovely when you think of it rightly, isn't it?" Madeleine said thoughtfully. "I'm so pleased over having come here. You see Father and Mother wanted me to spend a few weeks quietly where I could rest and pick myself up a little, and so they sent me here. I didn't care much about coming, but I'm glad now. You're doing me lots of good, Jane; you seem to help me to unlock the doors to everything that's just best in me."
"It isn't that I do it," said Jane; "it's that it's been done to me, and after it gotthrough me, it's bound to shine on. It's like light; every window you clean lets it through into another place, where maybe there's something else to clean and let it through again."
"I suppose we just live to keep clean and let light through," laughed Madeleine, cutting out the biscuits.
"That's all."
"I think that you'd make a good preacher, Jane; you've such nice, plain, homely, understandable ways of putting things."
Jane laughed and popped the pan into the oven. "Come and help lay the table," she said. "Oh, you never saw anything as sweet as Aunt Susan's joy in her own things. She's like a little child at Christmas. It's a kind of coming back to life for her."
"They say that her sister was awfully mean to her."
"But she wasn't at all. She thought that she was sicker than she was, and shekept her in bed, and the joke of it was that Aunt Susan didn't like to hurt her feelings by letting her see what mistaken ideas she had, so she hopped up every time the coast was clear and kept lively and interested trying to be about and in bed at once."
"How perfectly delightful! I never heard anything so funny. And then you came and discovered the truth."
"Well, I didn't want her to stay in bed. I'd never encourage any one in a false belief, but she hadn't the belief,—she had only the false appearance. She didn't enjoy being an invalid one bit."
"I think it's too droll," said Madeleine. "Didn't you laugh when it dawned on you first?"
"It dawned on me rather sadly. But we laugh together now."
"What will she do when her sister comes back?"
"Oh, that will all come out nicely. I don't know just how, but I know that it will come out all right."
"Do you always have faith in things coming out rightly?"
"Always. I wouldn't dare not to. I'm one of those people who kind of feel the future as it draws near, and so I wouldn't allow myself to feel any mean future drawing near, on principle. I always feel that nice things are marching straight towards me as fast as ever the band of music plays."
"Do you believe that it really makes any difference?"
"Of course it makes a difference. It makes all the difference in the world, because hope's a rope by which any good thing can haul you right up to it, hand over hand."
"You give me a lot to think about," said Madeleine.
Jane ran out and picked some ivy leaves to place under the vase of flowers in the middle of the table. It made a little green mat. "There; we're all ready when they come, now," she said.
Presently they did come.
"Oh, what will Mrs. Cowmull say to this!" said Lorenzo, as he pulled out Mrs. Ralston's chair. "She's busy marking passages inThe Seven Lamps of Architectureto read aloud to me while I eat, and now I shan't show up at all."
"Have you seen her niece lately?" asked Madeleine.
"Yes, I saw her this morning. She wants to pose for me, only she stipulated that she should wear clothes. I told her that my models all wore thick wool and only showed a little of their faces. She didn't seem to like that."
"But what did you mean? Surely you don't always have them wear thick woolen?"
"I just do. If they haven't thick wool on, I won't paint them at all."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, I paint sheep."
The mild little joke met with great favor.
"I think you're a very clever young man," Susan said with great sincerity. "Tothink of me having a good time laughing with a sheep painter," she added. "Who holds them for you to paint, and do you set them afterwards?"