Although Jane’s fanatical cleanliness had been far-reaching, the professor’s study was nearly immune.  In the first place the door was usually locked and the key discreetly lost; and in the next place the professor had mildly but very obstinately insisted, through all the twenty years, that his desk, which is the sanctum sanctorum of the man with a past, remain untouched.  Jane sniffed copiously over this stipulation, and, as she liked to do a thing thoroughly or not at all, the study remained as a whole comfortably mussy.  Sometimes, however, Jane had twinges of conscience, resulting in the disappearance of all old, unbound, and destructible matter which presented itself.  So the professor painstakingly replaced equally old and disreputable matter around the study when the whirlwind had passed, and waited till the dust settled.

Of late the professor had been ill with a chronic rheumatism.  He grumbled a good deal about the “positively senile” character of his affliction and finally agreed to take to his bed for a few days in the hope of luring nature to a hasty cure.  The professor was rather helpless when he was ill; Jane was painfully and triumphantly energetic.  One memorable day, when the invalid had fallen into a restless sleep, he was awakened by the vigorous ministrations of Jane, who was creaking around the room in an ostentatious effort, to be quiet.  The professor looked and wondered what she would do if he were to yell.  Seeing he was awake, she stepped over briskly and began to arrange his bedclothes and pillows.  Her hand touched his sore leg.  He winced and groaned inwardly.

“I am going to sit here and read to you,” she announced with the stern cheerfulness which gave the recipient of her benefits a fitting sense of the self-sacrifice which prompted them.  Jane usually read tracts, and the professor did not feel religious; in fact he was conscious of an emotion of most unchristian belligerence.

“Aren’t you neglecting your house-work to attend to me?” remarked the victim with clumsy and obvious intent.

“My house is always in order, professor,” answered the supremely ignorant one tartly.

“How fortunate; my study, too,—­I suppose that is in order?” The professor felt most out of place as an inquisitor but he was desperate.

Jane looked at him, with as near a quizzical expression as her very unquizzical nature would permit.

“You know I’d do it if you weren’t so stubborn about using a wastebasket instead of that desk,” she said.

“Better clean it out, Jane—­clean it all out—­anything, anything,—­” but she was gone.  He took the tract which she had left on his table and carefully tore it in four pieces, and hid them under the mattress.  Then he went to sleep.  The professor was in distinctly a rebellious mood.