“Madrina! What for? Indeed you’re not!” exclaimed Jane.
“This is what took me from you when you were babies; this is what kept me from you all your lovely childhood, which can never be recalled; this is what made me happy while you thought me dead. I hate it all, suddenly! If Mary had died”—she dropped her voice, glancing toward the bed, but speaking fiercely in spite of the muffled tone—“if Mary had died, and I remembered how short a time I had known her, lovely, sweet, dear Mary, for the sake of this!” Mrs. Garden wrung her hands, unable to express her horror of what had been her pride. “There’s nothing in it all, children; there’s nothing in anything on earth that draws one away from right and beautiful motherhood. Never forget that. I’ve been exactly what you called me: a toy-mother! I’m going to burn every foolish one of them!”
“No, madrina, please!” said Jane, dropping down beside her mother. “You didn’t know when you went away from us; you were so young. You had no idea that motherhood was more beautiful, made sweeter music, than your singing. Don’t be sorry; it all had to be. Do you suppose it matters how people learn things, provided they are not wicked? I imagine it’s just like school: different courses, you know. I’m a lot like you, and I can sing and act, you say. Perhaps I’d never have known that glory isn’t the best thing in the world if you hadn’t left us, and come home to tell us. Though I couldn’t have gone far from Mary! You mustn’t burn these things, little madrina! We want them; they’re our pride now, you see! It’s like bringing in the sheaves; these are the sheaves you’ve brought into the garden, and to your Garden girls. They’re ours now, madrina, because you are ours.”
Mrs. Garden stared at Jane, amazed, then dropped her head on her shoulder with a long breath of relinquishment.
“You are uncanny, Jane, positively,” she said, still speaking low, not to disturb Mary. “You can’t possibly know the things you seem to know, at your age! Every word you have said, Jane, is true and wise! How could you see all that? Mary is my sweet dependence, but you can be my teacher, thoughtful little Ruddy-locks! It’s your intuition, the intuition of an artist, Janie, that shows you truth. After all, it is a great thing to be an artist, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes!” Jane breathed fervently. “But of course I’ve got to be Jane Garden, in the best way I can be, before I’ve a right to think of any other label. I feel ages older since Mary was hurt.”
“So do I, Jane, ages!” her mother agreed with her, as if they were girls together. “I never had much experience with life; I’ve been playing on its surface.”
“You can’t have, can you, unless you’re awfully fond of some one—like all of us now, here together?” asked Jane, suddenly embarrassed.
“More wisdom!” her mother exclaimed. “One lives in experience and feeling, not in events.” She had spoken louder than she meant to, and Mary opened her eyes, and put out her hand. “Janie and Mel, I’m going to stay right here, and I can’t help being glad not to have even heaven without my chumsters,” she said.
Florimel choked. When she was quite small, Mary had contracted the two words, “chums” and “sisters” into “chumsters,” to express the peculiar closeness of the tie between the Garden girls. Florimel had always loved it. It was so sweet to hear it now, and to know that their intimate love was not to be cruelly sundered, that she ran out of the room to be tearfully glad, alone, on the stairs. Jane jumped up, and ran over to Mary.