“Belle!”--the tone was an indignant protest.
“But we were--listen! She lived in that house all her life till last year. She never went anywhere or did anything. For twenty years she lived with an old man who had lost his mind, and she tended him like a baby--only a baby grows older all the time and more interesting, while he--oh, Will, it was awful! That old lady--told me.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed the young fellow, under his breath.
“And there were other things,” hurried on the girl, tremulously. “Some way, I never thought of Aunt Jane only as old and timid; but she was young like us, once. She wanted to go away to school--but she couldn’t go; and there was some one who--loved her--once--later, and she sent him--away. That was after--after grandfather lost his mind. Mother and Uncle Edgar and Uncle Fred--they all went away and lived their own lives, but she stayed on. Then last year grandfather died.”
The girl paused and moistened her lips. The man did not speak. His eyes were on the road ahead of the slow-moving car.
“I heard to-day--how--how proud and happy Aunt Jane was that Uncle Fred had asked her to come and live with him,” resumed the girl, after a minute. “That old lady told me how Aunt Jane talked and talked about it before she went away, and how she said that all her life she had taken care of others, and it would be so good to feel that now some one was going to look out for her, though, of course, she should do everything she could to help, and she hoped she could still be of some use.”
“Well, she has been, hasn’t she?”
The girl shook her head.
“That’s the worst of it. We haven’t made her think she was. She stayed at Uncle Fred’s for a while, and then he sent her to Uncle Edgar’s. Something must have been wrong there, for she asked mother two months ago if she might come to us.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve been--good to her.”