CHAPTER IX
MADELEINE'S SECRET
THE two girls were enjoying a pleasant time in Susan's big, tidy kitchen.
"I never knew that a kitchen could be so perfectly lovely," said Madeleine, as they took tea by the little table by the window. "Jane, you are a genius! One opens the gate here with a bubbling feeling that everything in the whole world's all right."
"I'm so glad," said Jane; "it's grand to feel that one is a real channel of happiness. I always seem to see people as made to form that kind of connection between God and earth, and that happiness is the visible sign of success, a good 'getting through,' so to speak."
"Do you know, the English language is awfully indefinite. That sentence might mean good flowing like water through people, or people so made that good can go through them easily. Do you see?"
"Yes, I see. But either meaning is all right. It isn't what I say that matters so much, anyway. It's how you take it."
"I took that two ways."
"Yes, and both were good. That's so fine,—to get two good meanings, where I only meant one."
They smiled together.