Bildungsromans; City and town life -- Juvenile fiction; First loves -- Juvenile fiction; Religion -- Philosophy -- Juvenile fiction
"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 do anything 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
cheerful sigh; "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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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