"then," said aunt elsie, pushing her advantage, "you see there is no pretence nor cowardice about it; there is just a plain common-sense decision called for, and if he shouldn't do the rest, according to promise, why—he would be the one to blame. now, perhaps, we have talked as long as we ought, for this time; if we keep real still i think you can drop to sleep."
quiet reigned in the room for several minutes, during which the watcher prayed, with all her soul, for the lamb outside the fold. then came jean's voice again:
"aunt elsie, i want to ask one more question. do you honestly think that people—young people, i mean, with life all before them—could have really good times in the world if they had agreed to think always first about pleasing god? i know ray is happy, but there is no use in pointing her out to me because she is different from other people; she always was; i couldn't be like her if i tried for a hundred years; i don't know another girl like her anywhere. she never seems to fuss over things, and be almost cross because she is trammelled by her professions; but that is the way lucile watson is, and several others that i know, who seem to be trying at it, and making poor headway. i don't believe that i—" here aunt elsie interrupted:
"what about derrick?"
"derrick?" repeated jean, in wonder. "dick, do you mean? why, does he—is dick—what do you mean?"
"he is the happiest boy i know anything about," said aunt elsie. "just bubbling over with joy from morning till night—since you began to get well."
"but is dick—do you mean that he is—that he has done—what you said must be done?"
"he has given himself to jesus christ, enlisted for life, and i don't think i ever knew a more decided soldier, nor a happier one."
"dick!" jean said, in wonder, and at the same time enlightenment in her tone; this then was what had wrought that mysterious change in him which had half vexed and wholly puzzled her. it was not aunt elsie with whom he was in love, but—jesus christ! "dick!" she said again, softly, this time with awe in her tone; and she asked no more questions, said not another word, although it was long before she fell asleep.
neither she nor her aunt referred to that particular conversation again; at least not for many a day. as a matter of fact it was months afterwards, when jean, in radiant health and in love with life, recalled a sentence that she had used that afternoon, and asked:
"what could you have thought of me, aunt elsie, didn't you think i talked like a lunatic, or an idiot?"
"i thought," said her aunt, with a quiet smile, "that you talked like a person who was not acquainted with jesus christ."
"well, i wasn't," said jean. "i didn't know anything about him nor about religion, either; but i thought i did; i considered myself very wise, and i had drawn my conclusions from looking on at those who professed to know him, too. i think, after all, that the blame for such mistaken ideas rests very largely with christians, don't you? they don't act as though they believed that the christian life was the best and happiest life to live, even in this world; honestly, now, do you think they do?"
"a great many do not," her aunt admitted, thoughtfully. "and a great many others of us are false witnesses part of the time. i'll tell you what i think is the only thing that you and i can do about it; that is, try each day to live in such a way that people looking on can not truthfully say that of us."
"i know it," said jean, humbly. "that is truly the way i want to live. you see, i was so mistaken about it! i thought i must be a christian in order to get ready to die; after the awful warning i had had, i realized that i simply must not risk having another such experience; but i could not make myself understand that there would be anything along the way but a lot of crosses for me to tug at. i just long to live so that the girls will understand how much they are missing in not choosing the same road."
she stooped to kiss her aunt's homely radiant face, and give her the winsomest of smiles as she flitted away, and presently they heard her clear voice sounding though the upper hall:
"i'm travelling toward life's sunset gate, i'm a pilgrim going home."
"how much you love that hymn, don't you?" florence said, looking out from her room to smile on the bright-faced girl.
"yes," said jean, "i do; it gives me a kind of thrill to sing it. i used to be afraid it; i liked the tune and could not help humming it, but the words seemed impossible. do you remember that night you were going to a party in your glorified gown, and i kept singing,"
"'i shall wake again at morning's dawn, i shall put on glory then.'"
"you said i was mixing things? that is the way i felt about it, although i could not keep from humming it; but that was because i was in love with the tune; the words repelled me; i thought it must be awful to have to live with the thought of dying right before one all the time; that is what i thought religion ought to be!" she laughed gleefully. "it's anything but that, isn't it? dying is just an experience, somewhere along the road, that isn't pleasant, in itself, because it is associated with sickness and pain; but, after all, it is only for a minute, compared with all the days and years; and the living part all along is glorious, isn't it?"
"it ought to be," florence admitted, gravely; and her eyes, as they followed her young sister, had a wistful look. as she closed her door she said within herself: "she has a different religion from mine, some way; i wonder why it is?"
following hard upon the joy and gratitude of the forman family over jean's complete recovery came the burden of bills, and bills, and bills! so although nothing could take away that joy, it was tempered with anxiety. straining every nerve as they had been doing before in order to meet their daily expenses and have a margin left to apply toward that fateful mortgage, it was not possible to get through the days, and especially the nights, without being stared at by that insistent question: "how are we to manage those extra expenses entailed by sickness?" it was good for jean that she was still a young girl upon whom responsibilities of any sort had never pressed, else it might have been hard for her to live up to the radiant joy that seemed to enfold her. it would have been so easy for the jean whom they had known, to sink into gloom over the thought that her unusual attack of obstinacy was in part responsible for these extra burdens. fearing something of this kind, the entire family had earnestly enjoined one another not to talk over financial anxieties before jean. neither did they, of course, say anything intentionally about such burdens before aunt elsie. one who had nothing of her own, but was dependent upon relatives for her daily living, was the last person before whom to talk of the cost of living. by common consent the responsible members of the family had agreed that she should never hear a word which might make her think that her coming to them had added a feather's weight to their daily budget.
"mother, hasn't she any money?" florence had asked one day, after they had been cautioning one another about letting their guest know of their financial stress.
"very little, i think, dear; your father never knew much about the settling up of the estate, but your uncle evarts told him that there was only a paltry sum left for elsie; not enough to clothe her decently, he said, to say nothing of her board."
"well," florence had said, after a thoughtful silence, "uncle evarts needn't worry his precious self; as long as this family has any crusts to eat she is more than welcome to her share, isn't she, mother?"
mrs. forman's response had been hearty, closing, as it so often did, with the refrain: "it really doesn't seem as though we could ever again get along without her."
yet the anxieties pressed; the wrinkles on mr. forman's forehead grew deeper; he spent fewer evenings with his family, but sat apart working over columns of figures or gravely staring at them, evidently lost in troubled thought. his sister, from the farther end of the living-room, often watched him furtively, wondering how she could learn, without seeming officious, just what was the pressure that they were evidently trying to keep from her. without having been consciously enlightened by any of them, she was beginning to have a strong conviction that it had to do with money matters. they did not talk economy, at least before her, but they practiced it; and she, being quick of eye and keen of hearing, had seen and heard enough since she had been a member of the family to convince her that careful economy even in the smallest matters was the rule of the house. of course, she could understand that sickness, with its endless train of expenses, had greatly increased the regular budget, but still there seemed to her an added distress that these long-foreseen bills did not account for.
it was derrick, the heedless, who finally enlightened her without in the least intending to do so. he tapped at her door one afternoon, pushed it open in response to her invitation, and with a quick glance around announced, in a disappointed tone, "she isn't here!"
"not yet," his aunt said, smiling, "but she will be, before long. that is, if you are looking for ray? you generally are, you know. come in and wait for her; she has gone with kendall to look at the negatives for those class pictures."
derrick dropped into the chair indicated as he said, with a discontented air, that kendall was a good deal of a nuisance; he seemed to be always wanting ray at the very same minute that he wanted her himself.
"i suppose, though, instead of growling, i ought to be counting my mercies because he hasn't carried her off bodily to some other house. i can't always be properly sorry over their numerous delays, for being glad he hasn't got her yet."
here surely was an opportunity for aunt elsie. "what is it that is delaying them now?" she asked, with the air of one who was simply keeping up her end of the conversation.
"oh, the everlasting hindrance, of course; money, or the lack of it. when i get really to work in this world, if i can't earn money enough to do the things that ought to be done, i'll go—" he stopped suddenly and laughed. his aunt smiled appreciatively.
"you can't 'go hang yourself,' after your favorite method," she said, cheerfully, "because you don't belong to yourself any more. what is to be done in such case?"
"i'll go earn more," he finished, gayly. he was trying to live up to the spirit of the hint she had once given him, that "random speeches partaking of the character of slang could easily be given too much license, if one were not careful."
up to that time he had not realized that he habitually talked in metaphors more or less related to the slang family. he had begun to watch himself, with a view to breaking the habit, but he considered it "awfully nice" in aunt elsie not to be always preaching at a fellow.
"good!" she said, heartily. "but do ray and kendall need a great deal of money before they can marry?"
"i don't know how much, not being a marrying man, myself; but, anyhow, it takes more than kendall has; or at least ray thinks it does. it isn't ken's fault; he would get married to-morrow if he could coax ray into it; it isn't the fault of either, i suppose; i guess it is just plain common-sense prudence. sometimes i think i hate common sense, and prudence, too."
"don't; they are too rare not to be treated with respect."
"but they are so awfully unhandy," he said, whimsically. "you see, it's this way with ken; he's got a mother that he wants to do everything for, and then some; i like him for that. she is jolly, too, and good pluck; things were sailing along pretty smoothly until she got sick, all of a sudden, and stayed sick. oh, she got better, you know, but not well; and she won't ever be well again; and they have a little house, comfortable and nice for well people, but not large enough for three when one of them is sick; see? that is what ray thinks; kendall doesn't agree with her; he is tired of doing without ray, you know; and he has planned everything out dozens of times, he told me so; but ray won't. it isn't that she wants a big house and all that, for herself; not she! you know ray—but she says if they get married, his mother will insist on giving up her own nice big room to them, and going into a little, tucked-up one, and doing without dozens of things that she ought to have, and all that. i just believe she is right; sickness costs a lot of money, you know, and she doesn't think ken ought to have any more expense than is necessary."
"oh, no, the house isn't his, they rent; but it is as large as ken can afford at present. he gets a pretty good salary, and they think the world of him; everybody says he is bound to rise, and in time he will be a partner; but he has had an awfully hard time. he took care of that sick brother of his; you know about him? well, he did everything for him for years and years; just at the time when he might be expected to have his hands full doing for his mother and himself. it has taken him three years to get the bills paid up; hospital, you know, and the funeral, and all the rest of it; ken has been splendid. besides all that, i guess ray feels that father couldn't—" just here the loyal derrick came to a full stop. it would never do to tell aunt elsie that ray didn't think father ought to have another cent added to his present burden. "gee whiz!" he said to himself, "i almost told her that father couldn't afford a wedding; i ought to be muzzled! but it can't do any harm to talk to her about ken's puzzles." suddenly he launched forth again:
"i tell you what, aunt elsie, s'pose, just for the fun of it, that i had money to toss about wherever i liked; couldn't i do a big thing right now! it makes my mouth water to think what fun i should have. i know a house where ray would rather live than in a palace. you've heard about our old home on dupont circle? but you've never been out there, have you? it's a dandy place, all right; trees, you know, and a big lawn, right in town! the house is nice; lots of rooms, and it's for sale, don't you think! dirt cheap, too, they say, for anybody who can pay money down; the man who owns it has lost his wife, and has a sick daughter, and is going to break up and go to england, where his son lives; so he wants to get rid of the house—turn it into money, because he doesn't want the bother of looking after it. jimmie breese told me all about it; i was out there with him to-day; went through the house; i don't remember it from living there; i was just a little kid, you know, when we moved. jimmie's aunt wants to buy it; jimmie says if she could raise the money she would take it; but she can't; and it's only to be had for cash down. i asked ken why he didn't buy it, and he laughed and said he was thinking of buying up the moon, instead. now, you see, what i would do if i were rich. i should plank down the whole big lump, and say to ray and kendall, 'bless you, my children; sail right in and get married next week if you want to; there's your house waiting for you.' wouldn't that be jolly fun?"
he had talked on rapidly, with a touch of recklessness, eager, especially, to make his aunt forget his blundering reference to his father. but he did not succeed; as soon as he paused for breath she asked a direct question:
"is it ray's delayed marriage that is making your father look so grave and troubled, just now?"
the boy flushed and hesitated. in his mind was the question: "how is a fellow who means to be always on the square to answer that?"
