“Isn’t old Mrs. Douglas a sweet woman?”
asked Janet, as they went down the road.
“M—m,” answered Anne absently.
She was wondering why John Douglas had looked so.
“She’s been a terrible sufferer,”
said Janet feelingly. “She takes terrible
spells. It keeps John all worried up. He’s
scared to leave home for fear his mother will take
a spell and nobody there but the hired girl.”
“He Just Kept Coming and Coming”
Three days later Anne came home from school and found
Janet crying. Tears and Janet seemed so incongruous
that Anne was honestly alarmed.
“Oh, what is the matter?” she cried anxiously.
“I’m—I’m forty today,”
sobbed Janet.
“Well, you were nearly that yesterday and it
didn’t hurt,” comforted Anne, trying not
to smile.
“But—but,” went on Janet with
a big gulp, “John Douglas won’t ask me
to marry him.”
“Oh, but he will,” said Anne lamely.
“You must give him time, Janet
“Time!” said Janet with indescribable
scorn. “He has had twenty years. How
much time does he want?”
“Do you mean that John Douglas has been coming
to see you for twenty years?”
“He has. And he has never so much as mentioned
marriage to me. And I don’t believe he
ever will now. I’ve never said a word to
a mortal about it, but it seems to me I’ve just
got to talk it out with some one at last or go crazy.
John Douglas begun to go with me twenty years ago,
before mother died. Well, he kept coming and coming,
and after a spell I begun making quilts and things;
but he never said anything about getting married,
only just kept coming and coming. There wasn’t
anything I could do. Mother died when we’d
been going together for eight years. I thought
he maybe would speak out then, seeing as I was left
alone in the world. He was real kind and feeling,
and did everything he could for me, but he never said
marry. And that’s the way it has been going
on ever since. People blame me for it.
They say I won’t marry him because his mother
is so sickly and I don’t want the bother of
waiting on her. Why, I’d love to wait
on John’s mother! But I let them think so.
I’d rather they’d blame me than pity me!
It’s so dreadful humiliating that John won’t
ask me. And why won’t he? Seems
to me if I only knew his reason I wouldn’t mind
it so much.”
“Perhaps his mother doesn’t want him to
marry anybody,” suggested Anne.
“Oh, she does. She’s told me time
and again that she’d love to see John settled
before her time comes. She’s always giving
him hints—you heard her yourself the other
day. I thought I’d ha’ gone through
the floor.”
“It’s beyond me,” said Anne helplessly.
She thought of Ludovic Speed. But the cases were
not parallel. John Douglas was not a man of Ludovic’s
type.
“You should show more spirit, Janet,”
she went on resolutely. “Why didn’t
you send him about his business long ago?”
