"Mrs. De Puyster Jones says that, of course, she hasn't a particle of self-respect left when it comes to servants," continued Mrs. Belknap feelingly. "But she's too delicate to do her own work, and Mr. Jones won't board; so what can she do? What can I do?"
Mr. Belknap softly whistled a popular coon song as he walked about the room. Then of a sudden and with entire irrelevance he broke into loud and cheerful singing:
"Oh, I may be cra-a-zy!
But I ain't no—fool!"
CHAPTER XIV
John Everett sat before the fire in his sister's cheerful little parlor for a full half hour without uttering a word. He was thinking particularly and persistently of Jane, of her proud, sensitive little face beneath its cloud of curling dark hair, of her shy, haughty eyes which refused to meet his own, of her curving mouth which so often quivered like a child's on the brink of heart-breaking sobs. He wished that he knew more of the girl's history.
"Strange that Margaret takes so little interest in her," this altruistic young person said to himself impatiently, as he glanced across at his sister, who sat cuddling her sleepy baby in her lap in the warm glow of the fireside. Mrs. Belknap was talking and laughing gayly with her husband, who stretched his slippered feet to the cheerful blaze with an air of huge content.