"Let 'em whistle, Sweetheart," was the unmoved response. "Even though the heathen roar, I cannot turn aside from my purpose of making you a Parisian fashion-plate."
"Yes, child! It is good of you to want to dress me up. But," with a half-laugh, "don't try to make me resemble one of those foreign fashion ladies. I saw one picture in a style paper that looked almost immoral. The placket of the dress was at the foot and showed two inches of the ankle."
"Trust your mother, innocent child," Zura advised, "those picture ladies don't wear dresses, just symptoms and I'd slap anybody that would ask you to wear a symptom. Now, tell me where to search for your belt."
Jane, ever weak in certain resistances, yielded and adored the more while submitting.
Under Zura's care Jane's person grew neater and trimmer. In her face, now filled out with proper food and rest, there was a look of happiness as if some great hope foreshadowed fulfilment.
The self-appointed missionary in her talks with me seldom referred to her work in detail. I respected her reserve and asked no questions, for I gravely doubted any good results from her labor. But to Zura she confided her plans and her dreams, and Zura having many dreams of her own, listened and sympathized. In all the Empire there was no collection of humanity that could surpass in degradation and sordid evil the inhabitants of the quarter that Jane Gray had chosen to uplift. Time and again the best-trained workers had experimented in this place. Men and women with splendid theories, and the courage to try them had given it up as hopeless, for fear of their lives.
Once only I remonstrated with Miss Gray and that when there had been in that section an unprovoked murder of particular horror. The answer of the frail woman was:
"I don't want to make you anxious, Miss Jenkins, but I must go back. The people are my friends. I've been charged with a message for them and I must deliver it. My poor life would be small forfeit, could I but make them fully understand."
I said no more for I thought if Jane was set on dying that way she'd just as well get all the pleasure out of it possible. To my surprise, unmolested and unafraid, she made her way through streets where no one officer went alone. Haunts of criminals and gamblers, murderers in hiding followed by their unspeakable womenkind.
This dream of Miss Gray's scorned to limit itself to a hospital for diseased bodies of the wretched inhabitants, but included a chapel for sick souls. These days it was difficult enough to get money for real things, the unreal stood no chance. Without resources of her own, backed by no organization, it seemed to me, like a child planning a palace. To the little missionary the dawn of each glorious day brought new enthusiasm, fresh confidence and the vision was an ever beckoning fire, which might consume her body if it would accomplish her desire.