CHAPTER XI
THE DIM LANTERN
Jane, in Baldy’s absence, dined on Sunday with the Follettes, in the middle of the day. In the afternoon she and Evans went for a walk, and came home to tea in the library.
Stretched in a long leather chair, Evans read to Jane and his mother “The Eve of St. Agnes.”
“How bitter cold it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold:
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent were the flock in woolly fold.”
Jane, curled up on the couch in her favorite attitude, listened to that incomparable description of stark winter weather, and was glad of the warmth and coziness. She was glad, too, of this pleasant company—Mrs. Follette was a great dear, with her duchess air, and her devotion to Evans. And Evans, reading in that thrilling and unchanged voice, was at his best.
As for Mrs. Follette, she was always glad to have Jane visit them. The child was so cheerful, and Evans needed cheer. Then, too, Jane was a delightful compromise between the girl of yesterday and the ultra-modern maiden who shocked Mrs. Follette not only by her lack of reverence but by her lack of reticence.
Jane might have bobbed hair, but she did not have a bobbed-hair mind. The meaning of this conclusion was quite clear to Mrs. Follette, however obscure it might be to others. Girls who cut off their hair, as a rule, went farther—Jane stopped at her hair.