"I paint them right in the fields," said Lorenzo.
"I should think they'd butt you from behind."
"I paint over a fence."
"Well, that's safe," said Jane's aunt. "If you're careful not to be on the side where there's a bull."
After supper Madeleine helped Jane wash the dishes.
"What fun you make out of everything," she said.
"It's the only way," Jane answered. "My mission is to make two sunbeams shine where only one slanted."
"I'm glad I'm one of the heathen to whom you were sent," said Madeleine affectionately.
Jane put her arm around her. "So am I, dear, very glad."
Madeleine laid her face against the other girl's. "Some day I want to tell you a secret," she said; "a secret that Lorenzo told me yesterday."
Jane felt her heart sort of skip a beat. "Do tell me," she said in a whisper.
"I can't now," said Madeleine. "I want to be all alone with you. It's too—too big a secret to bear to be broken in upon."
"Can you come to-morrow afternoon? Auntie's going to Mrs. Mead's to the Sewing Society, and I'll be here alone."
"That will be nice," said Madeleine; "yes, I'll come."
SOUL-UPLIFTING
IT was the next morning about eleven o'clock.
"You see," said Jane, sitting in the Crofts' sitting-room opposite Katie Croft who, whatever else she might or might not be, was certainly not pleasant of expression, "you see, my aunt has been an invalid so much that she appreciates what a change means to both the sick one and the one who cares for her, and so we thought that it would be so nice if you'd let me wheel your mother—"
"She ain't my mother—she's my mother-in-law," broke in Mrs. Katie Croft, instantly indignant over so false an imputation. "Good lands, the very idea! My mother! And never one single stroke of paralysis nor nothing in my family,and all reading the Bible without glasses right up till they died."
"You see, it would give you a little rest, too," Jane continued, "and it would do Aunt Susan good to feel that she was helping a weaker—"
"She ain't weak," broke in Katie Croft, again; "my lands, she's strong as a lady-ox. Anything she makes up her mind to keep she lays hold of with a grip as makes you fairly sick all up and down your back. You don't know perhaps, Miss Grey, as my husband died in our youth, and I come to live with his mother as a sacred duty, and I tell you frankly that I wish I'd never been born or that he'd never been born, forty times an hour—I do."
"You'll like a week alone, I'm sure," said Jane serenely, "and we'll like to have your mother-in-law. Perhaps she'll get a few new ideas—"
"She's stubborn as a mule," interrupted the daughter-in-law.
"But may I see her and ask her? I do so want to help you a little. Life must have been so hard for you these last years."
"Hard!" said Katie Croft, with emphasis. "Hard! Well, I'll tell you what it is, Miss Grey,—to marry a young man as was meek as Moses and then have him just fade right straight out and get a mother-in-law like that old—that old—that old—well, I'll tell you frankly she's a siren and nothing else." (Young Mrs. Croft probably meant "vixen," but Jane did not notice.) "My life ain't really worth a shake-up of mustard and vinegar some days. What I have suffered!"
"I know more than you think," said Jane sympathetically; "nurses take care of so many kinds of people. But do let me ask her. If she likes to come to us, it'll be a great rest to you, and perhaps it'll do her a little good, too."
"I can't understand you're wanting her," said Katie. "It's all over town how queeryou are, but I never thought that anybody could be as queer as that!"
"Do let us go to her," Jane urged.
Katie rose and forthwith conducted the caller to old Mrs. Croft's room, a large, square place adorned with no end of black daguerreotypes and faded photographs.
"Mother, it's Miss Grey. You know?—she's Mrs. Ralston's niece."
Old Mrs. Croft received her visitor with acutely suspicious eyes. "Well?" she said tartly.
Jane took her hand, but she jerked it smartly away.
"Sit down anywhere," said Katie; "she hears well."
"Hear!" said old Mrs. Croft. "I should say I did hear. There ain't a pan fell in the neighborhood for the last ten years as hasn't woke me out of a sound sleep, dreaming of my husband—"
"Miss Grey's come to see you about something," interrupted Katie; "she—"
"I had a husband," continued old Mrs.Croft, raising her voice from Do to Re, "and such a one! Wednesday he'd go to sleep and Thursdays he'd wake, so regular you could tell the days of the week just from his habits. He—"
"Miss Grey wants—" interrupted Katie.
"I came to—" said Jane.
"I had a husband," continued old Mrs. Croft, going from Re to Mi now; "oh, my, but I did have a husband. In May I had him and in December I had him, but he was always the same to me. You can see his picture there, Miss Grey; it's all faded out, just from being looked at; but I'll tell you where it never fades, Miss Grey—it never so much as turns a hair in my heart. My heart is engraved—"
"You'd better go on and say what you've got to say," said Katie to Jane. "I often put her to bed talking, and she talks all the night through."
"I want to ask you—" Jane began.
"Ask me no questions and I'll tellyou no lies," sang Mrs. Croft. "Oh, I had—"
"—I want you to come and stay with us," Jane said, with forceful accents.
There was a sudden tense hush.
"My aunt and I want you to come and make us a little visit," the caller added.
The hush grew awful.
"A little change would be so good for you—you've been shut up so long."
Old Mrs. Croft lifted her two hands towards the ceiling.
"What do you want to take me out of my own house for? Going to do something to it that I wouldn't approve, I expect. Oh, I see it all. There was Macbeth and there was Othello, and now there's my house—What are you going to do to it, anyhow?" The question was pitched so high and sharp that Jane jumped.
"We just want to give you a little change."
"Change! I had a change once. Went to Cuba with my husband and nearly died.I don't want no change ofhouse," with deep meaning in the emphasis; "the change that I want is another change. Change is a great thing to have. My husband never changed. Only his collars. Never no other way."
"You and Aunt Susan are old friends—" suggested Jane.
"Never nothing special," broke in old Mrs. Croft. "My goodness, I do hope your aunt ain't calling me her friend, because if she is, it's a thing I can't allow."
Jane thanked her stars that her powers of mental concentration forbade her mind to wander. "I'm sure if you came to us, you'd enjoy it," she said persuasively; "we've such a pretty bedroom down-stairs, and I'll sleep on the dining-room sofa, so you won't feel lonely."
"Lonely. I never feel lonely. I'd thank Heaven if I could be let alone for a little, once in a while. I don't want to come, and that's a fact. If that be treason, make the most of it."
"Oh, but you must come," said Jane; "you'll like it. We want you, and you must come."
"Well, get me my bonnet then," said old Mrs. Croft. "Run, Katie, I've been sitting here waiting for it for over an hour."
Katie and Jane regarded one another in consternation. They hadn't quite counted on this.
"I'm going visiting," said Mrs. Croft gaily. "Oh, my, and how I shall visit. Years may come and years may go, and still I shall sit there visiting away, and when I hear the door-bell, I shall know it's time for Christmas dinner."
Katie took Jane's hand and drew her out of the room. "I don't believe you'd better take her," she said; "she's so flighty. I know how to manage her, and you don't. Just give it up."
"No, I won't," said Jane, smiling. "I know that it's a kind thing to do and that I must do it. I'm going to take her."
"Seems so odd you're wanting to," saidKatie. "You're very funny, I think. People are saying that you think that everything's for the best. Do you really believe that?"
"Of course. We can't get outside of God's plan, whatever we may do. If we do wrong, we have to bear the consequences because it's as easy toseethe right thing to do as the wrong, but the great Plan never wavers."
"Oh, my," said Katie. "I'm glad to know that."
Jane pressed her hand. "I'll get things all ready, and we'll bring her over tomorrow night," she said; "that'll be best. Then she can go right to bed and get rested from the effort."
So it was arranged, and the Sunshine Nurse went home to tell Susan that Mrs. Croft had consented to come. She felt quite positive that now they would both attain unto a higher plane without any difficulty, if they kept such a guest in the house for a week.
"It isn't going to be easy, Auntie," she said, a bit later, "but it will teach you and me a lot, and if one wants to voyage greatly, one must get out into the deep water."
"I'll do anything to get hold of some different way of getting on with Matilda," said Susan, "and I begin to see what you mean when you say that if I changeme, I'll change it all. If you could make flour into sugar, you'd have cake instead of biscuit, but, oh, my! Old Mrs. Croft!"
"It won't be for so very long," said Jane, "and think of Katie Croft through all these years! She's been splendid, I think."
"Well, she didn't have any other place to live, you know," Susan promptly reminded her niece.
"Work's work, no matter why you do it," Jane said, "and all the big laws work greatly. This having old Mrs. Croft is a pretty big step for you and me to take, and you'll see that when Aunt Matilda returns, we'll be so strongly settled in ournew ways that she can't unsettle us. We'll be absolutely different people."
"Y—yes," said Susan, confidence fighting doubt stoutly. "I'm willing to try, although left to myself I should never have thought of old Mrs. Croft as a way of getting different."
"Anything that we do with earnest purpose is a way of getting better," said Jane. She looked out of the window for a minute, and her lip almost quivered. Susan didn't notice. "Everything is always for the best, if we're sure of it," she then said firmly.
MADELEINE'S SECRET
THE two girls were enjoying a pleasant time in Susan's big, tidy kitchen.
"I never knew that a kitchen could be so perfectly lovely," said Madeleine, as they took tea by the little table by the window. "Jane, you are a genius! One opens the gate here with a bubbling feeling that everything in the whole world's all right."
"I'm so glad," said Jane; "it's grand to feel that one is a real channel of happiness. I always seem to see people as made to form that kind of connection between God and earth, and that happiness is the visible sign of success, a good 'getting through,' so to speak."
"Do you know, the English language is awfully indefinite. That sentence mightmean good flowing like water through people, or people so made that good can go through them easily. Do you see?"
"Yes, I see. But either meaning is all right. It isn't what I say that matters so much, anyway. It's how you take it."
"I took that two ways."
"Yes, and both were good. That's so fine,—to get two good meanings, where I only meant one."
They smiled together.
"Mr. Rath and I were talking about that last evening," said Madeleine, the color coming into her face a little. "Do you know, he's really a very dear man. He's awfully nice."
Jane jumped up to drive a wasp out of the window. "You know him better than I do," she said, very busy.
"I've known him for several years, but never as well as here."
Jane came back and sat down. Madeleine was silent, seeming to search for words.
"You were going to tell me a secret," her friend said, after a little.
"I know, but I—I can't."
Jane lifted her eyes almost pitifully. "Why not?"
"I don't feel that I have the right, after all. Secrets are such precious things."
"If I can help you—?"
"Oh, no, no.—It isn't any trouble. It's something quite different—I—I thought that perhaps I could tell you my thoughts, but—I can't."
There was a silence.
"There are such wonderful feelings in the world," Madeleine went on, after a little; "they don't seem to fit into words at all. One feels ashamed to have even planned to talk about them. One feels so humble when—" she paused—then closed her lips.
Jane put out her hand and took the hand upon the other side of the little table, close. "Don't mind me, dear; I understand."
"Do you really?"
"Yes."
Madeleine's eyes were anxious. "Do you guess? Did you guess?"
"Yes."
"And how—what—what do you think?"
"I think that it would be lovely, only, of course, I don't quite know it all, for I shall never have anything like it."
Madeleine started. "Oh, Jane, don't say that."
"But it's so, dear."
"Oh,no."
"No, dear,—I can guess and sympathize. But I shall never have any such happiness. It's—it's quite settled."
Madeleine left her seat, went round by the side of the other girl, flung herself down on the floor, and looked as if she were about to cry. "Oh, Jane, you mustn't feel so. Why shouldn't you marry?"
"I can't, dear; I've debts of my father's to pay, and I'm pledged to my Order."
"But they'll get paid after a while."
"It will take all my youth."
"But a way can be found?"
"No way can ever be. There is no one in the wide world to help me. I'm quite alone."
"Why, Jane," said Madeleine, always kneeling and always looking up, "I know some one who can manage everything, and you do, too."
Jane stared a little. "My aunt, do you mean?"
"No,—God."
Jane smiled suddenly. "Thank you, dear. I hadn't forgotten, but I just didn't think. Still, I think God means me to be brave about my burdens. I don't think that He sees them as things from which to be relieved."
Madeleine was still looking up. "But the channel doesn't think; the channel just conveys what pours along it," she whispered.
Just at this second the scene altered.
"Oh, there's my aunt!" Jane exclaimed.Susan passed the window, and the next minute she came in the door. "I've had the most bee—youtiful afternoon," she announced radiantly. "I did Jane lots of credit, for I never said a word about anybody, but oh, how splendid it was to just be good and silent, and hear all the others talk. They talked about everybody, and a good many were of my own opinion, so I had considerable satisfaction without doing a thing wrong."
Jane couldn't help laughing or Madeleine, either. "Was young Mrs. Croft there?"
"No, and most everybody says that she'll go off to-morrow and never come back, and we'll have old Mrs. Croft till she dies. They looked at me pretty hard, but I stuck to my soul and never said a word."
"It was noble in you, Auntie," Jane said warmly.
"Yes, it was," assented Susan. Then she turned to Madeleine, who had returned to her chair. "Jane's religion's pretty hard on me, but I like its results, and I can doanything I set out to do, and I don't mean to not get a future if I can help it. You see, my sister Matilda is a very peculiar person. You must know that by this time?"
"I have heard a good deal about her," Madeleine admitted.
"Well, I hope it isn't unkind in me to say that I know more than anybody else can possibly imagine."
"But she's coming back all right," Jane interrupted firmly; "we mustn't forget that."
"No," said Susan, with a quick gasp in her breath; "no, I'm not forgetting a thing. I'm only talking a little. And oh, how Mrs. Cowmull did talk about you, Madeleine. She says Mr. Rath can't put his nose out of the door alone."
"That's dreadful," said Madeleine, trying not to color, "especially as we always come straight here."
"Well, I tell you it's pretty hard work being good," said Susan, with a cheerfulsigh; "it's a relief to get home and take off one's bonnet."
"And don't you want some tea, Auntie? It's all hot under the cozy."
"Yes, I will, you Sunshine Jane, you. I'll never cease to be grateful for good tea again as long as I live. I've had five years of the other kind to help me remember."
Later, when Madeleine was gone, Susan said: "Do you know, Jane, Katie Croft is certainly going to desert that awful old woman when we get her here? Everybody says so."
"No, she isn't, Auntie; the expected is never what happens."
"Jane, any one with your religion can't rely on proverbs to help them out, because the whole thing puts you right outside of common-sense to begin with."
Jane was sitting looking out upon the pretty garden. "I know, Auntie; I only quoted that in reference to the Sewing Society gossip. It's never the expected that happens in their world; it's the expectedthat always happens in my world. And proverbs don't exist in my world; they're every one of them a human limitation."
"Well, Jane, I don't know; some of them are very pretty, and when I've seen Matilda over the fence and run down to get a few scraps, I've taken considerable comfort in 'No cloud without a silver lining' and 'It never rains but it pours.' They were a great help to me."
Jane kissed her tenderly. "Bless you, Auntie,—everything's all right and all lovely, and Madeleine made me so happy to-day. I'm sure that she's engaged."
"Yes, I've thought that, too."
"Yes, and I'm so glad for her."
"I hope he's good enough for her."
"Oh, I'm sure that he is." Jane thought a minute. "And Madeleine gave me a big lesson, too," she added.
"What?"
"She showed me that with all my teaching and preaching, I don't trust God half enough yet."
"Well, Jane," said Susan solemnly, "I s'pose trusting God is like being grateful for the sunshine,—human beings ain't big enough to hold all they ought to feel."
"Perhaps we'd be nothing but trust and gratitude, then," said Jane, smiling.
"They're nice feelings to be made of," said Susan serenely, "but I must go and put my bonnet away. But, oh, heavens, when I think that to-morrow old Mrs. Croft is coming!"
"And that lots of good is coming with her; she is coming to bring happiness and happiness only."
"Yes, I know," Susan's air was completely submissive. "I can hardly wait for her to get here. They wondered at the Sewing Society if she'd sing Captain Jinks all night often. She does sometimes, you know. But I'm sure we'll like her. She's a nice woman."
OLD MRS. CROFT
OLD Mrs. Croft arrived the next afternoon about half after four. She was rolled up in her chair, and her small trunk followed on a wheelbarrow.
"How old you have grown!" she said to Susan, by way of greeting, as she grated up the gravel. "My, to think you ever looked young!"
They wheeled her into the hall. "Same hall," she said, looking about, "same paper you had thirty years ago. Oh, my, to think of it. I've papered and papered and scraped off, and papered and papered and scraped off, and then papered again in those same thirty years."
They got her into the room on the ground floor, which had been prepared for her. "I suppose this was the most convenientplace to put me," she said, "and so you put me in it. Put me where you please, only I do hope you haven't beetles. It makes me very nervous to hear 'em chipping about all night, and when I'm nervous, I don't sleep, and when I don't sleep, I just can't help lying awake. It's a way I've got. I caught it from my husband when he was a baby. He'd wake up and give it to me."
Susan went out with Jane to get her some supper. "I never thought much about Katie Croft," she said, "but I never doubted she had a hard time."
"Yes," said Jane, "and one of the nicest things in this world is to be able to give some one who's had a hard time a rest."
"Wouldn't it be dreadful if she died, though, while she was here?"
"Who? Old Mrs. Croft?"
"Oh, no, she won't ever die. I meant Katie. Everybody says she's going to run away, but if she don't do that and dies, we'll be just as badly off as if she did it."
"Oh, Auntie!"
"Well, Jane, we'd have to keep old Mrs. Croft till she died."
"I guess there's not much chance of that," Jane said; "she won't die. She has come here to do us good and to receive good herself, that's all."
Susan looked appalled. "Surely you don't expect to sunshineherup, do you?"
"Yes, I do."
Then Susan looked amazed. "Well, I never did! I thought she was just here to do us good. I—"
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a piercing shriek. Jane flew.
"I'm so happy I just had to let it out," Mrs. Croft announced. "I can't hold in joy or sorrow. Sorrow I let out in the low of my voice—like a cow, you know—but joy I let rise to the skies. You'll hear to-night."
Jane looked at her and smiled. She looked like a story-book witch in a nice, white, modern bed. "I thought that perhapsyou wanted something," she said, turning to leave the room again.
"No, indeed, I never want anything. I ain't by no means so bad off as is give out."
"I guessed as much. You can make a fresh start now, and we shan't remind you of the past."
"Oh, then I'm coming to the table," exclaimed Mrs. Croft, "and I'm going to be helped like a Christian and feed myself like a human being. This being put to bed and just all but tied there with a rope isn't going to go on much longer, I can tell you."
"Don't speak of it at all," said Jane; "you just do what you please here, and we'll let you. I'm going to get you your supper now."
"Stop!" cried old Mrs. Croft sharply. "Stop! I won't have it! I won't stand it. Oh, I've had such a time," she went on, bringing her clenched fist down vigorously on her knee under the bedclothes and raising her voice very high indeed,"such a time! I had a beautiful son that you or any girl might have been proud to marry, and then he must go and marry that Katie Croft creature. There ain't many things to cut a mother's heart to the quick like seeing her own son marry her own daughter-in-law. Such a nice raised boy as he was, so neat, and she kicking her clothes under the bed at night to tidy up the room. Oh!" cried Mrs. Croft, lifting her voice to a still more surprising pitch, "what I have suffered! Nothing ain't been spared me. I lost my son and the use of my legs from the shock and—"
"Supper is all ready," Jane interrupted sweetly and calmly.
"What you got?"
"Sardines—"
"I never eat 'em."
"Toast."
"I hate it."
"Plum preserves."
"Lord have mercy on me, I wouldn't swallow one if you gave it to me."
Jane stood still at the door.
Susan, having heard the screams, came running in.
"Oh, Mrs. Ralston," cried Mrs. Croft, "I had"—Jane rose, approached the bed, and laid a firm hand on her arm. "What do you want for supper?" she asked in a quiet, penetrating tone.
"I don't want nothing," cried Mrs. Croft; "days I eat and days I don't. This is a day I don't eat, and on such a day I only take a little ham and eggs from time to time. Oh, my husband, how I did love you! It's just come over me how I loved him, and I love him so I can't hardly stand it—"
"We'll go out and have supper ourselves, then," said Jane.
"Eat, drink, and be merry while you can," fairly yelled Mrs. Croft. "The handwriting is on the wall and the Medes and Persians is in the chicken yard right now. Oh, what a—"
They slipped out and shut the door afterthem. Susan turned a scared face Jane's way. "Why, she's crazy!" she said. "Katie always said so, and folks thought she was just talking. It's awful."
"She's a little excited with the change," said Jane soothingly; "she'll be calmer soon. It's very bad to shut one's self off from others. It's better to fuss along with disagreeable people than to live altogether alone. She's grown flighty through being left alone. It's a wonder that you didn't get odd yourself."
When they went back after supper, Mrs. Croft was sound asleep.
"Don't wake her, for goodness' sake," whispered Susan, in the doorway. Jane left the room quietly, and her aunt took her by the arm and led her up-stairs. "This is pretty serious," she said. "I think Katie Croft ought to have told us."
"She didn't want her to come; we insisted," said Jane.
"I tell you what," said Susan, "we were too happy."
Susan's tone was so solemn that Jane had an odd little qualm. But the next instant she knew that all was right, because all is always right. "Auntie," she said, putting her hand on the older woman's shoulder, "you must try to realize that you've moved out of the world where things go wrong into the world where things go right. When you go out of the cold, dark winter night into a cosy, warm house, you don't fear that the house will turn dark and cold any minute."
"But old Mrs. Croft isn't a house; she's moved into us, instead."
Jane smiled her customary smile of tranquil sweetness. "She has come to show us ourselves," she said, "and to bring us to some kind of better things. I know it."
Susan's eyes altered to confidence. "Well, Sunshine Jane," she said, "I'll try to believe that you know. I'll try."
They went to bed early, and Jane slept on the dining-room sofa. In the nightMrs. Croft, calling, woke her. She jumped up and went to her at once.
"I'm hungry. You didn't ask me here to starve me, did you? Oh, how hungry I am. I've never been so hungry before."
"I'll get you anything you like," the girl said. "What shall it be?"
Mrs. Croft shook her head lugubriously. "Whatever I eat is sure to kill me. I wish I was home. You don't know how good dear Katie is to me, Miss Grey. Nobody could, unless they lived with her year in and year out as I do. Something told me never to leave my sweet child, and I disobeyed my conscience which won't let me sleep for aching like a serpent's tooth. Oh, my little Katie, my pretty little Katie, my loving little Katie that I went and left at home! Take me to her."
"But she isn't at home," said Jane. "She's gone away on a little visit. She went last evening."
"I shall never see her again," said Mrs. Croft mournfully. "I shall never see noone again. Oh, dear; oh, dear. My eyes. My eyes."
"What shall I get you? A glass of milk?"
"It doesn't matter. Whatever you like. I was never one to make trouble. Whatever you like."
When Jane returned with the milk and some hastily prepared bread and butter, Mrs. Croft was praying rapidly. "I think I've got religion," said she, in a bright, chatty tone; "if you'll sit down, I'll convert you. It's never too late to mend, and so get your darning basket and come right here." She began to eat and drink very rapidly. "It's going to kill me," she said, between bites, "but I don't care a mite. What is life after all,—a vain fleeting shadow of vanity,—why, you ain't put no jam on this bread!"
"Do you like jam? I'll get you some at once."
"Oh, merciful heavens, waking me up in the dead of night to give me plain breadand no jam! I shall never see Katie again, and perhaps it's just as well, for she'd not stand such doings. Oh, you idle, thriftless girl, take me home, take me home at once."
"In the morning," said Jane gently.
"Oh, my,—why did I ever come! Katie, my Katie, my long-loving Katie; my dear little Katie that's gone to New York!"
Then, having swallowed the milk in great gulps and the bread in great bites, she shut her eyes and lay back again in bed.
"Shan't I bring you anything else?" Jane asked.
"No," said the invalid, "not by no means, and I'll trouble you to get out and keep out and don't make a noise in the morning, for I want my last hours to be peaceful, and I'm going to take a screw-driver and fix my thoughts firmly to heaven at once."
Jane went softly out.
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, shehasleft that dreadful old woman on us for life; I'll just bet anything folks knew exactly that she meant to do itwhen they talked to me so. WhatwillMatilda 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. Iknowit!"
"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 Iain'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 ofthe 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 notto 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 atpaying 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 allright 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.
EMILY'S PROJECT
AFTER dinner that day Emily Mead came with her work. Emily Mead was one of those nondescript girls who seem to spring up more and more thickly in these troublous, churned-up times of ours.
Too pretty to be plain, too unattractive to be beautiful. Too well-to-do to need to work, too poor to attain to anything for which she longed. Too clever to belong to her class, not clever enough to rise above it. Altogether a very fit subject for Jane to "sunshine," as her aunt put it.
"How do you get along with old Mrs. Croft?" she asked, directly she was seated.
"She's asleep yet," Jane said; "she was so restless all night."
"She always sleeps days and is awake all night; didn't you know that before?" queried Emily, in surprise. "Some one ought to have told you."
"It doesn't matter," said Jane serenely. There was never any bravado in her serenity; it was quite sincere.
"That was what made Katie so mad," Emily continued. "She said it gave her her days, to be sure, but, as she couldn't very well sleep, too, all day, she never really had any time herself."
"We'll get along all right," said Jane quietly; "old people have ways, and then they change and have other ways, and the rest must expect to be considerate."
"Mercy on us, I wonder what she'll change to next," said Susan, with feeling. She had just returned from listening at the invalid's door.
"Don't worry, Auntie,—just remember!" Jane's smile was at once bright and also a bit admonitory.
"I'm trying to believe that everything'sall right always, too," said Susan to Emily, "but, oh, my!"
They went out on the shady side of the house to where a little table stood, which was made out of a board nailed into a cut-off tree stump. Jane and Emily carried chairs, and Susan brought her darning basket. It was delightfully pleasant. From time to time Jane or her aunt slipped in and listened at the door, but old Mrs. Croft slept on like a baby.
"I do wonder if Katie Croft has really gone for good!" Emily said to Susan, while Jane was absent on one of these errands.
"I can't trust myself even with my own opinions," said Susan reservedly; "I haven't much time to get changed before Matilda comes, you know, and I want to believe in Jane's religion if I can. It's so kind of warm and comforting. I like it."
"Jane," Emily said, turning towards her when she returned, "I've come to-day on an awfully serious errand, and I want you to help me."
"I will certainly, if I can. What is it?"
"Do you really believe that wanting anything shows that one is going to get it? You said something like that the other day."
"I know that one can get anything one wants," Jane answered gravely; "of course the responsibility of some kinds of wanting is awfully heavy. But the law doesn't alter."
"Can you explain it to me?"
"Yes, that's it," said Susan, "you tell us how to manage. I want to get something myself. Or I mean it's that I want something I've got to go away again. Or I guess I'd better not try to say what I mean."
"But you won't either of you understand what I mean, when I tell you," said Jane. "It's just as I said before, it takes a lot of study to get your brain-cells to where they can hold an idea that's really new to you. Heads are like empty beehives,—you have to have the comb before you can have the honey, and every different kind of studyrequires a different kind of cells just for its use alone. When things don't interest us, it's because the brain-cells in regard to that subject have never been developed. That's all. That's what they taught me."
"I think it's interesting," said Susan. "I always thought that the inside of my head was one thing that I didn't need to bother about. Seems it isn't, after all. Go on, you Sunshine Jane, you."
"I'm like your aunt. I thought that what I thought was the last thing that mattered," said Emily.
"Everything matters. There's nothing in this world that doesn't matter, because this world is all matter. Anything that doesn't matter must be spirit. Don't you see that when you say and really mean that a thing doesn't matter, you mean that to you it isn't material,—that it's no part of your world?"
"Dear me, I never thought of that," said Susan, "then I suppose as long as things domatter to us, it means we just hang on to them and hold them for all we're worth."
"Yes."
"But, Jane, thoughts can't matter much? Or we can forget things."
"There isn't anything that we can think of at all that we are ever free not to think about again—that is, if it's a good thought," said Jane. "If a thought comes to us at all, it comes with some responsibility attached. Either we are meant to gain strength by dismissing it, if it seems wrong, or it's our duty to do something with it, if it's right. Most people's minds are all littered up with thoughts that they never either use or put away. That's what makes them so stupid."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Susan. "Why, I never put a thought away in my life,—not as I know of."
"I've never thought anything at all about my thoughts," said Emily, looking rather startled.
"Lots of people don't," said Jane; "they act just as a woman would in making a dress, if she cut it out a bit now and a bit then without ever laying the pattern back even, and then joined it anywhere any time, and then was surprised when it didn't even prove fit to wear—not to speak of looking all witched."
"Is that what ails some lives?" Emily asked, looking yet more startled.
"It's what ails almost every life. It's what makes 'I didn't think' the worst confession in the world. A man driving a motor with his eyes shut wouldn't be a bit worse. Life's a great powerful force always rushing on, and we swing into the tide and never bother to row or to steer or to see that our boat is water-tight."
"You make me feel awful, Jane. As if I'd been lazy, staying in bed so. And it was the only way."
"You couldn't do any better, Auntie. At least you weren't doing anything wrong. Being moored in a little, quiet cove is betterthan being adrift and slamming into the boats of others."
"I'd really have had to think more about Matilda's thoughts than my own, if I'd known. I'd never have had time for much thinking as I pleased in the way you say; I was always jumping up and flopping down."
"Jane," said Emily earnestly, "then every thought matters?"
"Yes, or matterates." Jane smiled. "If a thought doesn't produce good, it'll surely produce bad,—it's got to do something. You plant your thoughts in time just as one plants seed in the ground, and any further thoughts of the same kind add to its strength until enough strength causes an appearance in this world."
"You really believe that?"
"I know it. I know it so well that I think that every seed that's ever fallen was a lesson that we were too stupid to learn. Every time a seed fell and germinated, God said: 'There, that's the very plainest teaching on earth. Can't you see?' SometimesI think the world's all a book for us to learn heaven in, just as our bodies explain our souls to us."
Susan looked at Emily in an awed way. "I guess I can get to believe it all," she said, in a low tone; "it sounds so plain when you stop and think of it."
"I'll try to believe it," said Emily, "but what I care most about is to learn how to get what you want?"
Jane considered. "That comes ever so far along. You have to learn to get what you want out of yourself before you can be upon the plane where you naturally get what you want, because you are too far on to want what you couldn't get."
Emily didn't understand and didn't care. "Do tell me how it's done, anyway," she begged eagerly.
"I don't know whether what I say will have any meaning for you, but I'll say it, anyway. You'll have to know that it's what I believe and live by, and if you're to believe it and live by it, it will come to youquite easily, and if not it's because it isn't for you yet."
"I mean to believe," said Emily firmly. "I want something, and I'll do anything to get it."
Jane shook her head. "That's the very hardest road to come by," she said, "unless it's some overcoming in yourself that you are wanting. You see, the very first step has to be the conquering of ourselves, not the asking for material things. You have to open a channel for the spirit, and then the material flows through afterwards, as a matter of course. But if you've gone on a good ways, you don't think of gettingthingsat all; you just want opportunities to grow, and you know that what you need for life will keep coming."
"But it doesn't with lots of people," said Emily. "Just look at the poor—and the suffering."
"They aren't living according to this law," said Jane. "They're living on another plane. There are different planes."
"Don't you see," interposed Susan, "we asked Mrs. Croft because it would get me on a plane where, when Matilda came back, she wouldn't mind so many changes."
Emily looked inquiring. "A different plane?"
"Yes," said Jane, "you can lift yourself straight out of any circle of conditions by suddenly altering all your own ideas—if you've strength to do so."
"I'd never have asked Mrs. Croft alone by myself, you know," said Susan; "nobody that looked at things the way other folks do, would. But Jane looks at everything different from everybody else. She said it would be a quick way of being different. I guess she's right."
"I never heard any ideas like that."
"But they aren't new," said Jane; "they're older than the hills. God made the world and then gave every man dominion over his world. We all have the whole ofourworld to rule. This way of looking at things is new to you, but there arethousands and thousands of people proving it true every day. All the old religions teach it, and all the new religions bid you live it or they won't be for you. They don't kill men for not believing now. They just let them live and suffer and go blundering on. Why"—Jane grew suddenly pink with fervor—"why, everywhere I look, almost, I see just lovely chances being let die, because people won't fuss to tend them. People are too careless and too thoughtless. The truth is so plain that the very word 'thoughtless' fairly screams what's the matter to every one, but hardly any one bothers."
"But the people who believe as you do,—do they all get everything that they want?" asked Emily.
"Or else they want what they get," said Jane; "it comes to exactly the same thing when you begin to understand. The beauty of every step nearer God is the new learning of how exactly right his world is managed. All my old puzzles have been cleared up, and it's so wonderful. Why, I used tothink that when beautiful, dear little children died it was awful; but now I know that they came to help and teach others, and that when they'd spread their lesson to those others, they didn't need lessons themselves and just left the school and went back into the beautiful world of Better Things. It was such a help to me to know why splendid men and women who were needed went so suddenly sometimes; it's because they're needed much more elsewhere and respond to that call of duty at once. I don't think of death as anything dreadful now; I think of it as a door that will open and close very easily for me."
"It's one door that Matilda liked to keep setting open," said Susan,—"oh, dear me, Jane, I'm trying to grow brain-cells and be a credit to you, and I can't think of anything but old Mrs. Croft. Perhaps she's woke up."
Jane rose and went into the house.
"Do you think you can take it all in?" Emily asked, slowly and thoughtfully.
"I'm doing my best," said Susan, "she's so happy and so good I think she must know what she's talking about."
Jane came back. "She's still sleeping," she said; "don't you worry, dear Auntie."
"I can't help it," said Susan. "I've dodged about for so long and played things were so that weren't so, that I guess I'm pretty much out of tune, and it'll be a little while before I can stop worrying."
"No, you aren't out of tune," said Jane, smiling at her affectionately, "or if you are, just say you're in tune and you will be, right off."
"Do you believe that?" Emily asked.
"Why, of course. I know it absolutely for myself, and I know that it's equally true for others if they have the strength to declare it."
"But how?"
"How! Why, because every declaration of good is spiritual, and proves that you are one with your soul and master over your body, just as false declarations make youone with your body and take away all power from your soul. That's how mental cures work. When anybody says 'I am well,' she declares souls can't be ill, and she makes Truth stronger by adding her strength to its strength. But when a man says 'I am ill,' he declares a lie, for souls can't be ill, and so he's claiming not to be spiritual, but just to be his own body. It's as if a weaver stopped weaving and said: 'I've broken several threads, andI'mgoing to be imperfect, andIwon't bring any price, andI'llonly be fit to cut up into cleaning cloths.' What would you think of him? You'd say: 'Why, that's only an hour's work in cloth and can be put aside without further thought. Just go right on and with your skill and judgment make the next piece perfect. It was never any of ityou; it was the stuff you were making.' Bodies are the stuff we are making."
Emily laid down her work. "Jane, that's wonderful," she said solemnly. "You put that so that I really got hold of it. Iunderstand exactly what you mean, and if only everybody else did!"
"But nobody else really matters to you," said Jane; "all that matters to you is that you believe. They have their lives—you have yours."
Emily was looking very earnest. "I'm going to try," she said, rising. "I'm going to try. I must go now, but I'm going home to go to work in my world."
Jane walked with her to the gate. "I'll help you all I can," she said, "I'm so glad you're interested. It makes life so splendid."
Emily stopped and took her hand.
"Jane," she said, "I want to tell you something. I want to marry Mr. Rath. I think he's the nicest man I ever saw. Do you really—really—believe that I can, if I learn to think as you do?"
Jane turned white beneath the other's eyes. "Why, but don't you know—don't youseethat he's in love?"
"In love! With you?"
"With me,—oh,no. With Madeleine."
"Oh, no, he's not in love with her," said Emily decidedly; "I know that. I know that perfectly well."
"They knew one another before they came here, you know."
"Why, I see them round town together all hours," said Emily; "they're like brother and sister, they're not one bit in love. I thought that perhaps it was you."
"Oh, dear, no—I can't marry. I never even think of it."
"Don't you use any of your ideas with him?"
"No, indeed! I never ask anything for myself any more. I just ask to manifest God's will,—to help in any of His work that offers."
"You're awfully good, dear. But, honestly, do you think that I could surely get him if I tried?"
"Why, the law is certain, but"—Jane spoke gently—"you're so far from understanding it yet. I only told you a little.It takes ever so long to get one's mind built to where it will grasp an ideal and hold it without wavering once. There's such a lot I didn't tell you; I couldn't in those few minutes. I just showed you the picture, and you have to work hard till you learn how to paint it. You see, a wish is like blowing a bubble, and if you add wishes and more wishes, you gradually change the bubble into a solid mold, which is a real thing of spirit but empty of material; then, if you keep it solid and firm, the fact of it is real spiritually, and a vacuum as to matter makes the matter justhaveto fill it, and it is that filling into the mold shaped by our thoughts that makes what we see and live here in this world. The world is all matter circulating in thought-molds. Anything that you carefully and steadily and consistently think out must become manifest. God manifesting His will means that. We are His will. And the nearer we approximate to the highest in Him, the more we can manifest ourselves. That's why verygood people are seldom rich; they want to manifest in deeds and not in things. That's why they never keep money—it only represents to them the need of others. If you really and truly love Mr. Rath, and feel it steadily and steadfastly your mission to make him very happy, of course it will be, even though he loved some one else. But to want a man who loved some one else wouldn't be possible to any one who believed in this teaching. That's where it is, you see. When you get power, you never want to do evil with it. Power from God never manifests in evil. When you are where you can get whatever you want, it simply means that you are living where only good can come, and where you are able to see it coming."
Emily stood perfectly still, looking downwards. Then suddenly she burst into violent sobs. "Oh, I feel so small, so mean—so wicked. It isn't as you feel a bit with me. I just want to get out of this stupid town—and he's so good-looking!"
Jane's eyelids fell.
"I feel so mean and petty," Emily went on, pressing her hands over her face. "I could never be good like you. I can't understand. I just want to be married. I'm so tired of my life."
"Well," said Jane, with steady firmness, "why don't you go to him and talk it all over nicely? As you would with Madeleine or me. Perhaps that would be best."
"Do you really think so?" said Emily, lifting her eyes; "do you believe that a girl can go to a man and be honest with him, just as a man can with a woman?"
"I couldn't," said Jane, "because I wouldn't want to, but if you want to do it, I don't see why you can't."
"But why wouldn't you?"
"Because I get my things that other way,—simply by asking God to guide me towards His will and guide me from mistake."
"Did you do that about asking old Mrs. Croft?"
"Certainly. I do it about everything. I live by that rule now. I've absolute faith in God's guidance."
Emily looked at her. "It must be beautiful," she said, "and you really think that it would be all right for me to go and talk to him, do you?"
"Yes," said Jane slowly. "I think that it would be best all round."
"After all, this is the woman's century," said Emily, with a sudden energy quite unlike her previous interest. "I don't know why I shouldn't."
"I think that the best way to handle all our problems is to let them flow naturally to their finish," said Jane; "dammed or choked rivers always make trouble."
"I should like to say just what I felt to a man just once," said Emily thoughtfully. "It would do me a world of good."
"Then say it," said Jane. "Only are you really sure that he's not in love with Madeleine?"
"Oh, I'm positive as to that."
"Then go ahead."