Jane: A Pratt Portrait

THE skeleton in the Pratt closet was Jane, and she looked the part. She was spare and wiry, sharp-featured and sharp-tongued. Poor she was, too, and old, and she would n’t take a penny from her rich relations.

Jane was, of course, a widow, as her particular type of skeleton is pretty sure to be. The family were divided on the question of cause and effect, her eldest nephew, James Spencer, declaring that such a disposition as hers was enough to make a widow of any woman; while Martha, her brother Ben’s wife, testified that she had always found a great deal to like in Jane, even if her bereavement had made her a bit ‘ difficult.’

Happily for the family peace of mind, Jane was not a resident of Dunbridge. When, at the age (or youth) of seventeen, now more than fifty years ago, she had freakishly married Henry Bennett, a blameless but impecunious young man, boasting neither antecedents nor prospects, she had migrated with him to Westville, a fourth-rate manufacturing town some ten miles removed from Dunbridge topographically, while socially it was looked upon as quite the antipodes of that genteel suburb.

Jane’s mother, destined later to be known as Old Lady Pratt, had strenuously opposed the match, whereby she had made one of the few blunders of her career; for no one knew better than she that Jane was not to be ‘ druv.’ The wisest have their lapses, however, and when once the keen-witted little monitor had been betrayed into speaking her whole mind, the die was cast.

‘ No, Jane,’ she had declared, ‘’tain’t because this new beau o’ yourn is a poor man, ’n’ ain’t got any folks to speak of, — that ain’t why I’m so sot ag’in him. It’s because you’d think you was doin’ him a kindness in marryin’ him; ’n’ wuss still, he’d think so too. ’N’ that would be the plain ruination o’ you.’

‘ I’d like to know why,’ Jane flouted, setting her neck at an ominous angle.

‘You’d like to know why? Well, I’ll tell ye why. Ef you was to marry a man foolish enough to look up to you, you’d git to be so self-satisfied, that instid o’ broadenin’ out, you’d jest narrer down; ’n’ you’d stay narrered down till doomsday.’

Many persons affirmed that Jane was the ' livin’ image ’ of her mother, and never was the resemblance more pronounced than when the two were most, at odds. To-day, as Jane straightened her back, while her black eyes flashed defiance, the very look and attitude of her seemed a usurpation, and as such it was regarded.

‘ You’re a smart, likely enough girl,’ the mother persisted, with stinging emphasis, ‘but what you’re in cryin’ need of is a master! ’

At that moment, had he but known it, Henry Bennett’s suit was won.

' A master! ’ cried Jane, now in open and jubilant revolt. ‘ I’d like to see myself knucklin’ down to a master.’

‘ So should I! ’ The retort came back like a whip-lash. ‘I’m glad we kin agree on that.’

All this was ancient history now. Both Old Lady Pratt and Henry Bennett, aggressor and casus belli in that memorable engagement, had passed beyond the clash of arms, and only Jane, duly ‘ narrered down,’ and sharply acidulated in the process, remained, a living witness to its enduring consequences. Thanks to a liberal endowment of ‘ spunk,’ she had kept a ‘ stiff upper lip ’ through many a depressing experience in the dingy little town where her husband plied his trade of optician, and where, after his death, she and her son, Anson, continued to dwell in obscurity, not to say indigence. Yet, if her relatives had thus been spared the mortification of seeing one of their number grow shabbier and thinner under their very eyes, they had been nevertheless poignantly aware of the circumstance.

Not that the Pratts were peculiarly sensitive to the sufferings of other folks. They were doubtless quite as philosophical as the rest of us when it came to resigning themselves to their neighbors’ misfortunes. Only where the family credit was involved were they disposed to take things hard. And that an own daughter of Old Lady Pratt should ‘want for anything,’ that a near relative, an aunt in fact, of the wealthy banker, William Spencer, should be reduced to doing her own work in her declining years, — it was even whispered that she bought her coal in small quantities! — that did touch them sorely.

Various overtures made from time to time, looking to the amelioration of Jane’s condition, had formed a chronicle of failure, in the grim humor of which the intended beneficiary had found such satisfaction as a well-seasoned family skeleton may be supposed to derive from the embarrassment it causes. And when at last Anson too had passed away (a characteristically spiritless procedure), leaving his mot her in still more straitened circumstances, with neither chick nor child to look after her, the situation was felt to reflect grave discredit upon the whole connection.

Perhaps humor is too genial a word to apply to Jane’s relish of the general discomfiture. The quality of her perceptions, which were as keen as they were limited, had a tendency to turn things sour; while humor, as we know, is the prime sweetener. Whether or not her grocer was correct in ins surmise that ‘ the Widder Bennett ’ lived mainly on pickles, — the cheap brand, — morally at least such had been the case now these many years. She lived on pickles, — the cheap brand. What wonder that her sharp little teeth were set on edge?

But Jane was not the only one of Old Lady Pratt’s descendants who had a mind of her own, and when, a few months after Anson’s death, her sister Harriet went the way of many a less dignified mortal, the heirs, as they were quite justified in styling themselves, determined upon heroic measures.

‘It’s agreed, then,’said James the executor, in family conclave, ' that we make Aunt Jane a regular allowance.'

‘ In mother’s name,’Lucy threw in. ‘ She would n’t touch it otherwise.'

‘ Of course, in mother’s name,’ Arabella declared authoritatively. ‘ We all know she’d rather starve than be beholden to live folks.’

* She’s grown more peaked every year since Henry Bennett died,’James remarked testily.

‘ Yes,’ was his brother Pratt’s sardonic comment. ‘That’s just the plague of it, — her looking starved. We could make out to put up with it if she only had the sense to look as if she had enough to eat and wear.’

‘ Who’s going to see her about it? ’ asked Lucy, the peacemaker.

‘ Why not you? ’ her husband suggested. ‘ You ’re a great hand at getting round folks.’

‘ Nonsense, Frank! ’ But although she scouted the notion, she did so with her brightest smile; and Lucy’s smiles were jewels of the first water.

‘ The proper person to interview Aunt Jane is undoubtedly the executor,’ Arabella adjudicated unhesitatingly.

' What are you thinking of? ’ cried Susan. ' James could n’t keep his temper two minutes.’

‘ Could n’t keep my temper? ’ James thundered.

‘Pratt’s the man,’ Stephen interposed. ' He understands Aunt Jane better than anybody. He never riles her.’

' Nor he don’t try any palaver,’ James growled vindictively, and with considerable acumen too. For, in view of the skeleton’s eccentricities, — and they were anatomically well-defined, — the diplomatic Stephen was scarcely less disqualified for this particular mission than the explosive James himself.

Pratt, on the other hand, being an avowed misanthrope, might be considered more akin to his aunt than any of the others. His tongue was caustic but never hasty, his temperament bleak, but equable. Furthermore, although he was a lawyer, and a clever one too, he had never made money enough to incur an imputation of that smug selfcomplacency which Jane was so quick at ferreting out. People said he was too clever to take his clients seriously; they felt that he saw through them, and that made them restive. What they were paying him for was to see through the other fellow. It may also be mentioned, though he himself would never have owned it, that he was not infrequently handicapped by a sneaking sympathy for the under-dog.

When, a day or two later, the chosen emissary presented himself before his aunt in her dreary little sitting-room, where the winter’s chill still lingered, though April was setting things sprouting and simmering outside, — she struck him as looking more than ever like a small, elderly kobold on short, rations. The hue and texture of her skin, the cut of her wizened features, all bore out the impression, which was still further accentuated by a certain elfish alertness of glance and gesture, as of a creature not quite domesticated. Jane’s hair, which she wore pulled straight back, and fastened in a tight little knob at the nape of her neck, was, like her widow’s weeds, of a rusty black. But neither years nor reverses had availed to tarnish the sparkling jet of her eyes, nor to modify the acrid tang of her speech. Touching the latter, indeed, Pratt Spencer used to declare that, her waspishness was so purely automatic that no one had any business to take it amiss.

' Well, Pratt,’was her tart greeting.

‘ This is the second time since Christmas. Ain’t you get tin’ to be quite a society man? ’

‘Oh, this is not a duty call,’ he returned cheerfully. ‘ I’ve come for pleasure.’

' You hev, hev you? ’

‘Yes; I’ve come to make myself disagreeable.’

' Hm! Could n’t you do that nearer home? ’

‘Not this time. I’m depending on your coöperation.’

‘ Hopin’ to raise a loan, perhaps?’

The masterly sarcasm of this sally was enough to put even Jane into a good humor. Perceiving which, he made haste to follow it up.

‘How did you guess?’ he inquired, in simulated wonderment.

‘ Well, I thought you was lookin’ kind o’ sheepish.’

‘ You ’ll not make it too hard for me, will you, Aunt Jane? ’ he wheedled, unreeling his line, as it were, to give free play to her caprice.

‘ Dunno ’bout that,’ she returned, with a quite piscatorial whisk of fancy.

‘ Never did approve o’ young folks rurrnin’ in debt.'

Young folks, indeed! As if she did n’t know her nephew’s age to a day!

‘ We might call it a gift,’ he grinned, with a. crafty turn on the reel.

‘ A gift! ' It was a very polysyllable of misprision, — the sinuous protest of the trout as the line tightened.

‘ Why not? ’ And he turned upon her a pair of inquisitorial glasses. Goggle-eyed as he called himself, Pratt managed to make those glasses of his do a power of execution.

‘ Well, I never seen a Pratt yet that I’d offer money to; did you? ’

This was by good rights a poser.

‘Not my own, perhaps,’ he admitted, but, look here, Aunt Jane,’ — unblushingly sacrificing syntax to rhetoric,— ‘ how about when they’re gone where they’ve no more use for their money? ’

But she had him, there.

' Then of course you could n’t offer it to ’em,’ she retorted, with the ready logic of perversity.

Whereupon, conceiving that he had given her line enough, he dropped his angling, and came straight to the point. Yet, although he put the matter clearly and persuasively, and with entire sincerity, such was the force of skepticism bristling in every line of that gritty little face and figure, that he could n’t for the life of him keep from feeling the hypocrite; especially when it came to the peroration.

‘ You must know better than any one,’ he urged, beshrewing the inevitable platitude, ‘ how glad mother would always have been to see you enjoying the comforts you were born to.'

It is painful to record that at this point Jane sniffed.

' Oh, yes,’ was her astute comment.

' You can’t expect folks to be exactly proud o’ their poor relations.’

' Have it so, for all me,’ he acquiesced cordially. ’I should be the last to deny that we’re a parcel of egotists. But all the same,’ taking quick toll of his acquiescence, ' mother did want to see her own sister comfortable. And now’s the time for carrying out her washes.'

' No,’tain’t, ’ Jane obj ected, sh re wd ly.

' The time for kerryin’ out her wishes was when she was makin’ her will.’

But this was overstepping, and he promptly called a halt.

' You’re out, there,’ he said with decision. ’Right or wrong, mother had her own ideas about the family property. She would not have felt justified in — '

' Well, then,’ she broke in, ' that settles it. I should n’t think of crossin’ her, now she’s dead ’n’ gone.’ Then, with one of those quick movements with which she was wont to punctuate an ultimatum, ’S’posin’ we bev a taste o’ raspberry vinegar, — seein’ ’s you’ve come so fur for nothin’,’ she added maliciously.

' Not for me,’ he gave back, in frank tit-for-tat. ‘That would be too much of a good thing.'

' Well,’ she snapped, ’if you don’t relish what’s offered, you’re free to refuse it. We ain’t any of us so poor but we kin do that! '

Brisk as the retort was, she looked fagged, not, as usual, stimulated, by the fray. He marked the strain in the little pinched face, and straightway the under-dog began pulling at his sympathies. ‘Come, come, Aunt Jane,’ he pleaded, with gruff kindliness. ‘You’re out of sorts, and no wonder, living here all by yourself, without so much as a kitchen-maid to plague you. I suppose your mind gets running on Anson, and it wears on you.'

Well though he knew her, he half expected to see her soften. But he was reckoning without the innermost core of his fierce little antagonist. A hard glitter in those jet-black eyes warned him that he had trespassed.

' Anson was never much company,’ she averred harshly. ’ I ain’t missin’ him particularly.’ And Anson, her own son, scarce six months dead!

Pratt Spencer was sharply on the alert. A new element had entered into the case. Here was no thrust and parry of small arms; it was a cry of distress from a starving garrison. Not temper, but heart-ache had forced that cry, — plain, grinding heart-ache. Hateful word, that; hateful thing, too. And the man’s mind jerked backward, twentyfive years, to the day when Clara Dudley threw him over for a light-weight fellow who sang tenor.

How that tenor voice had rankled, all these years! And he, the lean sixfooter, encumbered with a portentous bass that flatted from sheer force of gravity, had behaved then exactly as Jane was behaving now. He too had lied, doggedly, bitterly. He had lied to his people, he had lied to Clara, he had lied to himself. Pie too had sworn that he did n’t care. And in course of time, when he considered himself cured of what he was now pleased to characterize as an acute cerebral dyspepsia, he had clinched the argument by inarming another girl, — a capital girl too, and one who had no ear for music, Yet, on the day, two scant years after Clara’s untimely death, when her husband had consoled himself with a new wife, Pratt Spencer had carried flowers to the grave of the girl who had jilted him. And always after that, on the anniversary of her husband’s second marriage, he had deliberately, punctiliously, carried flowers to her grave. Another man in his case might have kept her birthday, or the anniversary of her death. He chose to mark the day on which her husband had consoled himself. Thus he clearly demonstrated that it was an affair, not of sentiment, but of homely justice. She too merited consolation on that day, and he would see that she got it. For he could be judicial, since he did n’t care.

And Jane did n’t care. She wasn’t missing Anson particularly; he was never much company. Had she too been jilted, he wondered,—jilted by her own son? And — for whom?

‘ Aunt Jane,’ he asked abruptly,

‘ was Anson ever great friends with anybody? ’

' I dunno’s he was — unless ’t was with that old fogy, Dr. Morse, over to East Burnham,’ she added grudgingly.

' Hm! That was where he practiced medicine, was n’t it? ’

‘Yes; ’n’ Dr. Morse took good care that he did n’t practice medicine long! ’

Pratt had heard, years ago, and with cold disapproval, of his cousin’s fiasco. How, beguiled by the apparent simplicity of homœopathy, then just coming into vogue, — pushed into the practice of it indeed by the rash little martinet who was his mother, — he had suddenly turned doctor, much as he might have turned haberdasher, with no professional training, no conception of the need of it. How he had made a surprising success of the thing for a few months, and then had suddenly turned his back on fortune, and come home to sell spectacles over his fat her’s counter. A bitter pill that must have been for Jane. And now, in the si ark-impoverishment of her lonely life, wdiat more natural than that she should ruminate upon it till it played the mischief with her constitution? Plainly an antidote must be found, and who more likely to know the formula than that East Burnham doctor whom Anson had been so thick with? Indeed, where was the good of being a doctor at all, if you could n’t cure folks? With w hich somewhat revolutionary dictum, Pratt elected to pronounce the question closed.

Certainly it could do no harm to step over to East Burnham and have a word with the ' old fogy.’ To-morrow was Sunday, the weather seemed promising fora country jaunt, — an important desideratum, by the way. For as often as Pratt Spencer contemplated any enterprise which could he remotely construed into a good deed, he was at pains to convince himself that he was acting in obedience to a whim of his own. Yes, a trip to East Burnham was the very thing for an April Sunday, and if it turned out that the old doctor really did have that antidote up his sleeve, why, all the better. That affair of the allowance, a confounded bore at the best, could go over to a more favorable moment. He’d have his country jaunt at any rate.

‘ Well, Aunt Jane,’ he said,as he took her hard little hand in parting, — how many years of poverty and toil had gone to make callous that little hand, — and that little soul too as far as that went! — ‘ Well, Aunt Jane, I guess you and I are a good deal alike, and fight shy of our feelings. But. we all know what a devoted son Anson was.’ And now he was too much in earnest to bother about platitudes. ‘He loved his mother, if he was not much company.’

Again she sniffed.

He had got to the door and his hand was on the knob, when a sharp, strained voice arrested him.

‘ Pratt Spencer, you come back! ’

He turned, and stood, waiting for her to speak.

‘ You appear to think you know pretty much all there is to know ’bout other folks’ affairs,’ she rasped. ‘ I should like to hev you tell me when Anson ever poured out his heart to you.’

‘ Can’t say he ever did.’

‘ Hm! Thought as much. To hear you talk, a body’d think he’d been in the habit of tellin’ you what store he set by his mother! ’

The words were scornful, but there was an eager light in the eyes, and a sharp catch in the breath, as she waited his reply. Pratt Spencer, for all his pride of misanthropy, would have given much to answer in the affirmative. Being, however, but an indifferent liar at best, he found himself constrained to say, lamely enough,—

‘ I never knew Anson very well, Aunt Jane, but he had the name of being a devoted son.’

The eager light went out like a candle, — not blown out by the wind, but guttering in the socket from lack of nourishment. There was no more catching of the breath as she rejoined, dully,

‘Well, I dunno’s anybody’s ever denied it.’

And now the door had closed upon her visitor, and Jane stood, a forlorn little wilted figure, in the middle of the room, wondering what on earth she had been thinking of. Why had she said that foolish thing that did n’t deceive anybody, least of all herself? She did not miss Anson particularly? — did not miss him? No; because he was ever with her, — right there before her eyes, — his face turned away!

With a hard, dry sob, she dropped upon the nearest chair, and sat there, clutching the arm of it, and staring at the wall. There had been smirking shepherdesses on that wall six months ago. Here, in this room, the operation had taken place,—the operat ion which Anson had undergone at the hands of a rising young surgeon, James Ellery by name, whom Dr. Morse had summoned to the case. Here, right here, she had sat for hours afterward, watching for a look, a movement, any smallest token that the patient was thinking of his mother. But no, he had thoughts only for the doctors, only for the operation. When they told him that he could n’t pull through, ' That’s no account,’ he had protested feebly. ' The operation’s the thing. That’s all we care about.’

Ah, but the irony of that had struck home, — the sheer irony of it after all these years. For a long, dragging quarter of a century he had quietly, stubbornly held out against her, — quietly, stubbornly, he had gone his ways, oblivious apparently to the profession he had willfully renounced, the profession on which she had staked her all of motherly pride, — and now at last, when it could profit nothing, so alive to the appeal of it that he had never a word of good-by for her. Not wounded pride, not thwarted ambition — the master-grievance of her life hitherto — was wringing her heart in that hour, but just the primitive, indomitable mother-instinct, clamoring for its own.

‘ Why, mother! You up so late? Why don’t you go to bed? ’

She might have been the merest stranger intruding upon the scene, — one of those smirking shepherdesses that seemed to come alive and mock at her. The mocking shepherdesses had since been pasted over with a cheap sprawling wall-paper which her own hands had applied, but in imagination she could still see their smirking faces, their silly frills and furbelows, through the sprawling pattern. And so, under the stiff crust of indifference she so jealously guarded, that hidden wound had festered, unacknowledged, and when the chance probe of her nephew’s words pricked through, she could only cry out in a blind, senseless repudiation of that primitive instinct which had been mercilessly preying upon her for months past. Anson was never much company! She was n’t missing him particularly! Poor little undisciplined soul, caught in the tangle of its own tragic waywardness!

There was a timid rap at the kitchen door. A neighbor’s child stood outside. Jane’s neighbors were very small-fry nowadays; those who could afford it had long since moved uptown.

‘ Please, Mis’ Bennett,’ came a winning voice, ‘ ma thought p’raps you’d accommodate us with a few eggs. It’s Saturday night, and she’s all run out.

‘ It’s Saturday night over here too,’ Jane observed dryly.

The Dannings were arrant beggars, but Jane was never averse to playing the Lady Bountiful.

She stepped to the pantry. There were just three eggs there. She put them in a paper bag and handed them to the child.

' Tell your ma that’s all I can spare to-day,’ she said. ‘I’m kind o’short myself.’

And with a hasty ‘Thankee’ the child trotted off.

Jane returned to the sitting-room much cheered. She understood that certain of her well-to-do relatives had theories about encouraging mendicancy. She for her part would like to know how you could expect your inferiors to look up to you if you did n’t assert yourself.

She was crossing the room in quest of her work-basket, when she noticed that Pratt had left the evening paper behind him. She glanced at it in quick suspicion. Did he know she could n’t afford a paper? She had half a mind to mail it to him, — to put the price of it into a stamp. But, no. She liked Pratt. She did n’t mind accepting that much from him.

She picked up the paper and, seating herself, began reading it, diligently, systematically, as a person does to whom the daily paper is a luxury. Suddenly her heart contracted sharply. What was this about Dr. James Ellery and the amazing operation he had performed? She glanced furtively across the room to where the bed had stood. There was no bed there, and the shepherdesses that might have witnessed to it were pasted over.

With a sense of relief she returned to the perusal of the paper. Hastily, eagerly now, she ran her eye down the column, — a whole column, more than a column, all about that young man who had been Anson’s doctor. An odd movement. of pride in the fact had succeeded to that first twinge of pain. She could not make out much about the operation itself, the technical language puzzled her, but there followed a sketch of the young surgeon’s career, and that was easily intelligible. He had been a poor boy, orphaned son of an East Burnham mechanic, and had owed his education to an unknown benefactor, one who had never, to this day, revealed his identity, even to the beneficiary himself.

She liked that about the unknown benefactor. It would have been her own way of doing if she had had the means. Old Martin Crapp had not guessed where that five-dollar bill came from the time he broke his leg; and little Miss Elson, dying of consumption, had eaten her oranges with never a suspicion. No, Jane had never been one to ask for thanks. Willing as she was that her inferiors should look up to her, upon really self-respecting folks she would not impose that sense of obligation which she herself refused to tolerate.

Suddenly, by an oblique association of ideas, her mind reverted to a certain paper which she had found in Anson’s meagre collection. He had carefully destroyed everything which could give a clue to his interests and preoccupations. Not a letter had she found, not the smallest jotting of a personal nature. Only a few files of receipted bills, his old high-school diploma, and this life-insurance policy, — this sop to conscience, as she resentfully termed it, with which he had sought to condone his lack of filial feeling. In a fierce revolt of spirit, she had thrust the paper out of sight, not so much as breaking the seal.

To-night, as she read the account of James Ellery’s career, as her mind dwelt upon the excellence of unacknowledged benefactions, she perceived for the first time that this legacy of her son’s was no after-thought, no perfunctory quit-claim. It came to her as a revelation, that such an offering as this represented foresight, sacrifice, — that it was in the nature of a secret benefaction. He had never hinted at what he was doing. That same reticence which had been the chief sting of his quiet, persistent insubordination, had governed him in his care for her welfare. She found herself wondering how far back the instrument dated. Perhaps some day she would break the seal; but not now, not yet. She would not even draw the paper from its hidingplace and examine the superscription. In truth, there was no need of that; it was as clearly engraved upon her memory as upon the long white envelope: —

‘ Life-insurance policy, in favor of Mrs. Jane Bennett.’

The very wording of it, in Anson’s familiar hand, had been an offense. ‘ In favor of Mrs. Jane Bennett.’ His last written message, like his last spoken word, had held her at arm’s length. And yet, — that policy stood for foresight, for sacrifice. What was that Pratt Spencer had said? Anson had the name of being a devoted son? She liked Pratt. If you could n’t fool him, at leasl he never tried to fool you. That was why you trusted him.

The dusk was already gathering. She laid the paper down and, fetching her work-basket, lighted the drop-light. It was well past supper-time, but Jane did n’t mind that. She would have a bite on her way to bed. She would n’t have to bother with cooking an egg to-night, — nor to-morrow either, for that matter!

As she adjusted her glasses, she recalled, with a sore, teasing compunction, the pains Anson had taken to fit her eyes precisely, and his rather fussy solicitude lest she should strain them. He had been a dutiful son, in many ways. He had tried to spare her where he could. Nor had he ever doubted that he was contributing handsomely to the household expenses; for, noting how penurious he was grown, she had scorned to tell him that the cost of living had increased. And all that time, while denying himself t he smallest luxury or diversion, he had been making careful provision for his mother. Queer that she had never thought of it in that way before. Well, now at last, she would know how to value his gift.

And yet, strange as it may seem, she did not feel the slightest inclination to examine the document. For Jane’s crabbed nature, within its own hardand-fast limitations, was not devoid of a, curious, twisted streak of ideality. It was really a fact that she cared not at all for things, for possessions, as compared with what they stood for. That was why she would have elected to scrimp and shiver and toil to the end of the chapter, rather than accept aid which could be accounted a charity. And that same idiosyncrasy of disposition, that same twisted streak of ideality, still determined herattitude toward the policy. As she had rejected the offering when it seemed to her but a perfunctory quit-claim, so now that she had an intimation of its essential meaning, she felt no immediate impulse to investigate further. It simply did not strike her — yet — as having any direct bearing upon her own degree of personal solvency. What she would have liked to do about it was to show it to Pratt Spencer, in confirmation of his estimate of Anson’s devotion.

Yet when, the very next day, her nephew came again, — came, by the way, in a pouring rain that made ducks and drakes of his theories touching April Sundays and country jaunts, — she expressed neither surprise nor pleasure at seeing him.

' Did you come back for your paper? ’ was the cynical inquiry, as he laid his hat down on the table, cheek by jowl with the printed sheet.

‘ To be sure,’ he returned complacently. ' I could n’t sleep a wink all night, for worrying about it.’

' Speakin’ of that paper,’ Jane threw in, glancing keenly at him, as he took his seat beside the table, ' I don’t s’pose you happened, to notice quite a piece about young Dr. Ellery, and the remarkable operation he’s been performin’.’

‘ No; I had n’t noticed it, but Dr. Morse was telling me about it.’

' Dr. Morse? I did n’t know’s you knew Dr. Morse.’

' Never did till this morning.’

‘ Where’d you make his acquaintance? ’

‘ In his own office.’

' You went ’way over to East Burnham in all this rain? ’

' Yes,’ with a deprecatory shrug. Why the dickens must the weather man play him a trick like that?

‘ What for? ’ she queried peremptorily.

‘ I wanted to have a talk with him about Anson.’

All unconsciously she was managing the case for him. He had but to follow her lead.

' About Anson?’

' Yes,’ and he settled back in his chair as if for prolonged deliberation.

' The truth is, Aunt Jane, I’ve been feeling that there was something about Anson’s later years that perhaps we did n’t altogether understand. And it occurred to me that Dr. Morse might be in a position to clear things up for us.’

Jane bridled.

' I guess there wa’n’t much that Dr. Morse could tell meabout my own son,’ she scoffed.

' I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Anson was very reserved, but you never can tell where one of those closemouthed fellows will break out.’

The storm had suddenly gathered energy; a great gust of rain struck the window-panes. There was something petulant about it, something not unlike Jane’s own nervous vehemence.

' Pratt Spencer, what are you drivin’ at?’ she demanded.

' The truth,’ he returned, quietly picking up the gauntlet. ' Will you hear it?’

She sat, for a moment, rigid, yet shrinking.

' If that man over to East Burnham’s been sayin’ anything to Anson’s discredit,’she declared at last,”tain’t the truth, ’n’ I won’t hear it.’

’I’ve a notion that the whole truth about any one of us would be partly to our discredit,’ he opined. ' But I don’t believe many men could strike a better balance than Anson, when all was told.’

She had laid hold of the arms of her chair, bracing herself against them, while her eyes transfixed his face. In spite of herself she was solemnized, as he meant she should be. For it was a critical moment with Jane. That cheap defiance of hers must be held in check at any cost. He took off his glasses and fell to polishing them. She was not to feel herself under scrutiny.

‘ I wonder how much Anson himself ever divulged, of his reasons for giving up practice,’ he speculated thoughtfully.

Upon that, she let. go her hold on the chair-arms; the spirit of contradiction might be trusted to sustain her.

‘ He said he did n’t know enough,’ she flung out, ‘ but I’d like to know how he could hev made such a success of it if — ’

She had caught Pratt’s unspectaclcd gaze bent questioningly upon her, and she broke short off.

' Aunt Jane, be did n’t know anything; and he found it out.'

' Through Dr. Morse? ’ But the gibe was pure bravado, and she knew it.

' Through being guilty of malpractice.’

There was no use in mincing matters; it could only serve to confuse the issue.

‘ Who accused him of malpractice?’

' The facts in the case.’

' Well? ’

' He lost a patient.’

' You ain’t claimin’ that he was the first doctor that ever lost a patient? ’

’No’; for again she had given him his cue. ‘And he was not the first doctor to do so through malpractice. But he was the first doctor I ever happened to hear of who devoted his life to making good his— error.’

He had resumed his glasses, which were now turned full upon her.

' Aunt Jane, Anson lost a patient because he was too ignorant,’ — she winced visibly, but there was no help for it, — ' he was too ignorant to recognize pneumonia when he saw it.’

But once more she rallied her forces.

' That man has prejudiced you, Pratt Spencer. He was always jealous of Anson.’

' You think so? ’

' I know it. It was ho that made him give up practice, — it was he that— ’

' Would you like to hear what Dr. Morse had to say about Anson?’ he interposed quietly.

' I ain’t very particular.’

' But I am. He is an old-fashioned man, the old doctor, and he expresses himself in an old-fashioned way. But I am convinced that he meant it with all his heart when he said that he had come to love Anson as a son, and to revere him as a saint.’

She made a half-hearted attempt to sniff.

' Aunt Jane,’ he proceeded, gravely and firmly, ' Anson gave his whole life to making good the wrong. Secretly, and with the connivance of Dr. Morse, he supported his patient’s widow out of his slender means. He educated one of her boys, still in secret, mind you, to be a doctor. And that boy was — can’t you guess? ’

Her lips were parted, and now she was leaning forward, avid for the truth.

' The boy Anson educated was James Ellery, the young doctor who was in charge of his case at the end, — the doctor whose name to-day is known to half the profession. And your Anson made all this possible for him. Whatever that young man achieves, the world owes it primarily to Anson.’

On that, he paused, conscious of an awkward access of emotion. The rain had subsided to a gentle, conciliatory patter; there was already a streak of light in the west.

‘Does n’t this clear up some things that you had n’t quite understood?’ he asked presently. There was an indescribable gentleness and forbearance in his tone.

She sat for some seconds so still that it was impossible to conjecture her mood, her eyes fixed—though he could not know it — upon that corner of the room where she had chafed and hungered for the word that never came. At last she spoke, musingly, and with a curious tranquility, foreign to her stormy spirit.

‘ I see now,’ she said, ‘ why Anson did n’t think to say good-by. He had more important things on his mind.’

So here was the key to that ghastly speech of hers! He had n’t thought to say good-by, poor chap, quite taken up no doubt with watching that substitute recruit of his under fire. Rather stupid of Anson, certainly. But, after all, who could have guessed that the incorrigible little outlaw would have been such a stickler for signs and tokens? And now she understood: Anson had had more important things on his mind. Well, well! There was a vein of nobility in the little aunt. And this concession to something bigger, more ‘ important ’ than herself, — why, it was like the breaking of an evil spell. For the first time in her nephew’s recollection, she seemed a perfectly normal human being.

‘You’re not hurt, then,’ he ventured. ‘ You ’re not hurt, because Anson made such a secret of it? ’

‘Hurt? Not a mite. It’s exactly the way I should have acted, myself. Anson and I were more alike than you’d think for.’ There spoke the old Jane, promptly self-assertive. And yet — the motherly pride of it was good to witness— ‘ He was always more Pratt than Bennett.’

‘That’s certainly something for us Pratts to be proud of,’ was the hearty response. Upon which, with an adroit turn, and almost in the same breath, — ‘And now, Aunt Jane,’ he urged,

‘ you ’re going to let us treat you as one of ns? ’

Her black eyes snapped enigmatically.

‘ Oh, yes, if you’re a mind to,’ she answered with suspicious alacrity.

She was already on her feet and stepping briskly across the room to the old mahogany secretary where Anson had kept his papers.

‘ There! ’ she exclaimed, as she drew a long white envelope from the top drawer and handed it to her nephew, who had also risen, .and was standing, tall and watchful, beside her. ‘ You’re a lawyer, ’n’ I dunno’s there’s any need o’ goin’ out o’ the family to hev your business affairs attended to. You might see to this for me.’

‘ But it has n’t been opened,’ he demurred, turning the paper in his hand. ‘ How did that happen? Have you only just discovered it? ’

‘ Well — rightly speakin’ I discovered it last evenin’ after you’d left. I’d seen it before, but I had n’t understood its value.’

Pratt paused, his finger on the seal, looking down upon the taut little figure in which suppressed excitement was straining at the leash.

‘ No, Aunt Jane,’ he said. ‘I can’t open this.’

She hesitated an instant. Then, with a forced laugh and observing, — ‘Then you ain’t so smart as you’re cracked up to be,’ — she snatched the paper, and with nervous, trembling fingers, broke the seal. Inside was a further inclosure, unsealed, bearing also a superscription. Without a glance at the document itself she handed that to her nephew, retaining, however, the second envelope.

‘ I guess I’ll keep this,’ she said under her breath, while a slow color tinged the seared old cheek, and something dimmed the brightness of the eyes. ‘ ’T ain’t exactly business.’

Nor was it exactly business. For, written in Anson’s own hand, and speaking to her in Anson’s own quiet voice, were the words, —

‘ For mother, with love and goodby from Anson.’