Part 13 (1/2)

Jane smiled faintly, but her eyes were troubled.

”Thank you; I'm glad you feel--that way. You see, at Fred's--I wouldn't have them know it for the world, they were _so_ good to me--but I thought, lately, that maybe they didn't want--But it wasn't so, of course. It couldn't have been. I--I ought not even to think it.”

”Hm-m; no,” returned Mrs. Pendergast, with noncommittal briefness.

Not six weeks later Mary, in her beautiful Commonwealth Avenue home, received a call from a little, thin-faced woman, who curtsied to the butler and asked him to please tell her sister that she wished to speak to her.

Mary looked worried and not over-cordial when she rustled into the room.

”Why, Jane, did you find your way here all alone?” she cried.

”Yes--no--well, I asked a man at the last; but, you know, I've been here twice before with the others.”

”Yes, I know,” said Mary.

There was a pause; then Jane cleared her throat timidly.

”Mary, I--I've been thinking. You see, just as soon as I'm strong enough, I--I'm going to take care of myself, and then I won't be a burden to--to anybody.” Jane was talking very fast now. Her words came tremulously between short, broken breaths. ”But until I get well enough to earn money, I can't, you see. And I've been thinking;--would you be willing to take me until--until I can? I'm lots better, already, and getting stronger every day. It wouldn't be for--long.”

”Why, of course, Jane!” Mary spoke cheerfully, and in a tone a little higher than her ordinary voice. ”I should have asked you to come here before, only I feared you wouldn't be happy here--such a different life for you, and so much noise and confusion with Belle's wedding coming on, and all!”

Jane gave her a grateful glance.

”I know, of course,--you'd think that,--and it isn't that I'm finding fault with Julia and Edgar. I couldn't do that--they're so good to me.

But, you see, I put them out so. Now, there's my room, for one thing. 'T was Ella's, and Ella has to keep running in for things she's left, and she says it's the same with the others. You see, I've got Ella's room, and Ella's got Tom's, and Tom's got Bert's. It's a regular 'house that Jack built'--and I'm the 'Jack'!”

”I see,” laughed Mary constrainedly. ”And you want to come here? Well, you shall. You--you may come a week from Sat.u.r.day,” she added, after a pause. ”I have a reception and a dinner here the first of the week, and--you'd better stay away until after that.”

”Oh, thank you,” sighed Jane. ”You are so good. I shall tell Julia that I'm invited here, so she won't think I'm dissatisfied. They're so good to me--I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings!”

”Of course not,” murmured Mary.

The big, fat tire of the touring-car popped like a pistol shot directly in front of the large white house with the green blinds.

”This is the time we're in luck, Belle,” laughed the good-natured young fellow who had been driving the car. ”Do you see that big piazza just aching for you to come and sit on it?”

”Are we really stalled, Will?” asked the girl.

”Looks like it--for a while. I'll have to telephone Peters to bring down a tire. Of course, to-day is the day we _didn't_ take it!”

Some minutes later the girl found herself on the cool piazza, in charge of a wonderfully hospitable old lady, while down the road the good-looking young fellow was making long strides toward the next house and a telephone.

”We are staying at the Lindsays', in North Belton,” explained the girl, when he was gone, ”and we came out for a little spin before dinner.

Isn't this Belton? I have an aunt who used to live here somewhere--Aunt Jane Pendergast”.

The old lady sat suddenly erect in her chair.

”My dear,” she cried, ”you don't mean to say that you're Jane Pendergast's niece! Now, that is queer! Why, this was her very house--we bought it when the old gentleman died last year. But, come, we'll go inside. You'll want to see everything, of course!”