“Oh, don’t!” interrupted Jane, in quick distress. “I don’t want to put people out so! Let me go upstairs.” Mrs. Pendergast frowned and sighed. She had the air of one whose kindest efforts are misunderstood.
“My dear Jane, I am sorry, but I shall have to ask you to be as satisfied as you can be with the arrangements I am able to make for you. You see, even though this house is large, I am, in a way, cramped for room. I always have to keep three guest-rooms ready for immediate occupancy. I am a member of four clubs and six charitable and religious organizations, besides the church, and there are always ministers and delegates whom I feel it my duty to entertain.”
“But that is all the more reason why I should go upstairs, and not put all those children out of their rooms,” begged Jane.
Mrs. Pendergast shook her head.
“It does them good,” she said decidedly, “to learn to be self-sacrificing. That is a virtue we all must learn to practice.”
Jane flushed again; then she turned abruptly. “Julia, did you want me to--to come to see you?” she asked.
“Why, certainly; what a question!” returned Mrs. Pendergast, in a properly shocked tone of voice. “As if I could do otherwise than to want my husband’s sister to come to us.”
Jane smiled faintly, but her eyes were troubled.
“Thank you; I’m glad you feel--that way. You see, at Fred’s--I wouldn’t have them know it for the world, they were so good to me--but I thought, lately, that maybe they didn’t want--But it wasn’t so, of course. It couldn’t have been. I--I ought not even to think it.”
“Hm-m; no,” returned Mrs. Pendergast, with noncommittal briefness.