Jane Journeys On | Page 3

about not going, but the little Macey girl has had so
many interruptions and is so far behind, and she does want to play at
my recital, so that I felt I couldn't put her off again. How did your paper
go?"
"Oh, well enough. They were very nice about it."
"I know they loved it. I want to read it!" She closed the music cabinet
and came to take the typed manuscript. "Why, Jane! What's the
matter?"
"I don't know, Sally--Yes, I do know! It's--it's Mrs. Wetherby, and
every one else! She acts as if--every one acts--" it made her angrier still

to feel the color mounting hotly in her cheeks.
"Well, Jane, dear," a faint, sympathetic flush warmed her small, pale
face, "isn't that perfectly natural? Of course, I suppose it teases you, but
you know how happy every one is about it."
"But there isn't anything to be happy about--yet!"
"Then it's just because you have--have held things off, dear, that's all.
And I think Marty has been awfully faithful and patient--for years!
Ever since you were tiny kiddies!" She looked anxiously at her best
friend's mutinous face. "I'll tell you," she said, brightly, "let's run
around to Nannie's for a moment! She'll just be giving the 'Teddy-bear'
his oil rub. I'll run through the house and get my things--you wait out in
front!"
Nannie Slade Hunter (Mrs. Edward R.) was their second-best friend
and they had been among her bridesmaids two years earlier. A few
minutes of brisk footing through the fading November afternoon
delivered them at the Hunters' new, little house and in the nursery of
their little son. Sarah's knowledge of schedule had been correct. Nannie,
in an enveloping pinafore, her sleeves rolled high, her hands glistening,
was anointing her infant with the most expensive olive oil on the
market. The house was furnace heated and a small electric stove was
radiating fierce warmth, and her cheeks were blazing. Jane and Sarah
flung off their wraps and gave themselves whole-heartedly over to the
business of worship and praise.
Little Mrs. Hunter, on whom matronhood and maternity sat with the
effect of large spectacles on a small child, inquired indulgently into the
activities of her friends. "Paper go nicely, Janey? Sorry I couldn't
go.--Yes, he was his muzzie's lamby-lamby-boy! Yes, he was!--And
how many pupils have you now, Sally?"
"Seventeen," said Sarah, thankfully, "and if everything goes well I'll
have my baby-grand in four years!"
Edward R. Hunter, unmistakable father of the glistening infant, came

into the room as she spoke and at once propounded a conundrum.
"Here's a good one, Jane! What's the difference between Nannie and
Sally? Give it up? Why, Sally'll have a baby-grand, but Nannie has a
grand baby!" The hot and breathless nursery rang with mirth; it seemed
to Jane that the very pink room was growing hotter and hotter, and it
smelt stiflingly of moist varnish and talcum powder and warm olive oil
and expensive soap, and the baby, sitting solemnly erect for his
powdering, a steadying hand at his fat back, looked like a pink celluloid
Kewpie leering at her knowingly. She heard herself saying with
unconsidered mendacity that she had an errand to run for her Aunt
Lydia, and that Sally mustn't hurry away on her account, and presently
she was down in the dim street again, with Edward R.'s jocose reproach
that old Marty Wetherby was fading away to skin and bone echoing in
her ears. She went dutifully for a magazine Miss Vail had mentioned
and went home the "long way 'round," so that she was barely in time
for supper, which consisted of three slices of cold boiled ham, shaved
to a refined thinness and spread upon an ancient and honorable platter
of blue willow pattern ware, hot biscuit, a small pot of honey and two
kinds of preserves, delicate cups of not-too-strong tea, sugar cookies
and a pallid custard.
Her aunt was fond and proud over the afternoon's triumph but didn't
quite understand her having gone away so abruptly, and feared that Mrs.
Wetherby had been "just the least mite hurt about it."
"But then," she hastened to add, at Jane's impatient movement, "it'll be
all right, dear! You're going to see her to-night, and I know you
can--sort of smooth it over."
"I was thinking," said her niece, dark eyes on her plate, "that perhaps I
wouldn't go this evening, Aunt Lyddy."
"Not go? Not go to Mrs. Wetherby's? Why,--Jane!" Miss Vail laid
down her fork and stared, her mild eyes wide with astonishment. "You
aren't sick, are you?"
"I think I'm sick of always and always going to the same places with

the same person, and hearing the same people say the same things!"
Instantly she wished she might recall the sharp words, satisfying