Marion Ames Taggart

“ Jan turned crimson, but stood to her guns after a fashion. “He needs help, uncle, or he did need it—he will not forget now, I think,” she said. “And you know Aunt Tina and you have been so busy! I love Jack, Uncle Howard, and I pity him more than I do Gwen. How would you have felt if you had blinded mamma when you were eleven?”
“My dear child, I never had such a fiendish temper as Jack’s,” said Mr. Graham.
“No, you were more like Gwen, even and pleasant, and you weren’t like Jack. But Jack is a noble boy. He isn’t mean, and he isn’t unkind,” said Jan. ”

“ But Gwen had had sorry experience with ungoverned temper from her earliest days. She caught Jack deftly at last, pinioned his arms, and bore him—for she was a tall, strong girl—half dragging him, half carrying him, to Hummie for punishment, though he kicked and fought all the way.
“Isn’t he a cherub?” asked Gwen, returning triumphant, but short of breath.
“It’s awful!” cried Jan, who had been quite frightened during the tussle. “If some one doesn’t teach him to control that temper he may do something he’ll be sorry for all his life. ”

“ A little righteous indignation often does wonders. Jan had risen with her heart in her rubber-soled shoes. As she heard Daisy’s ugly, vulgar speech her nerves suddenly steadied, and with a profound contempt for the speaker came a resolution to show these girls that she could excel them in sport as easily as she could not help knowing that she surpassed them in class.
Sydney met her at the foot of the stairs, and he read the steady light in her eyes and the firm curl of her lips aright, and with unspeakable relief saw that Janet could be relied on. ”

“ And you might as well call me Jan. They always do at home; Janet seems so long. Though, of course, if you like it better, it doesn’t matter.”
“No; Jan is cozy, and it suits you somehow,” said Gwen. “Don’t you want me to take you to your room? You must be tired, and feel all over cinders; I always do after I have been traveling.”
“Thanks. Is Aunt Tina away?” asked Janet timidly.
“Oh, mamma is out; she has no end of things to attend to; she isn’t at home much,” said Gladys. “We are all dreadfully busy; I never have a moment myself! ”

“ There are people who would rather another had a treasure than possess it themselves,” smiled Mrs. Graham.
“That’s goody-goody people!” said Jack wrathfully, not in a frame of mind to admire virtue utterly beyond his reach.
“They’re better than baddy-baddy people at least,” said Gwen. “If Jan must go, let’s not make it worse.—When would she have to start, papa?”
“Her father doesn’t say. I think we are entitled to a little time in which to get used to the amputation,” said Mr. Graham. “I won’t let her go under a week.” ”

“ Gwen felt something of the pride of an architect in the building he has created as she wheeled Jan around to view her from every point, and as she saw that the others were newly inclined to admire the girl of whom she was beginning to grow fond, and whom she would have loved dearly if she had not been too self-centered just then to give any one very much affection. ”

“ Gwen said. “Daisy Hammond was wild to be the princess, and she knew if Gladys could be got out of it she would be put in, for she was second choice for the part in the first place. I’m just certain that crowd is at the bottom of it!”
“So am I,” Jan agreed. “Let’s try to find out what they’ve done and straighten it out! It’s a perfect shame not to give a girl a chance to explain. I’m so sorry for Gladys! I’ll never rest till it’s made right.”
“What a trump you are, Jan,” said Gwen, stopping short to gaze admiringly at her cousin. “You never bear the least grudge. ”

“ And no, dear, you certainly must not mind Gladys’s dislike too much, nor even feel sure it is dislike, because one is likely to get the kind of treatment one expects. I am as sorry as I can be that she apparently despises poverty. Of course that is nonsense. Rich people are not better than poor ones, nor are poor people better than rich ones. It all depends how one meets and uses his opportunities, and money or its lack is an accident. Rich people are tempted to be hard and selfish, but, on the other hand, poor people are tempted to be envious and jealous. ”

“ She was tall, not pretty, but distinguished looking, with that air of good breeding which is so definite, yet so indefinable—the look of one who for many generations had inherited good principles and right standards of living and taste.
“My cousin, Janet Howe, Miss Dorothy Schuyler,” murmured Gladys.
Dorothy put out her hand. “I am so glad to have you here, Janet,” she said. “I was so much interested in what you were saying. There aren’t many girls with enough affection for their fathers to study that they may help them, and few clever enough to do it, even if they do want to. ”

“ The three girls retired to Jan’s room to have a cry and feel better, though that was not consciously the object of the tears. Tommy Traddles came stretching and purring to meet them, and Jan caught him to her heart.
“O my poor, dear Tommy Traddles!” she cried. “He has got so handsome, and strong, and loving! And he does play hide and seek so beautifully with me. Will you promise to take just as good care of him as I do, Gwen and Gladys? And will you swear—honest, true, black and blue—not to let him get left behind to starve in the streets when you go to the country?” ”

“ Gwen and Jan looked up in amazement. Could this be Sydney? The color had mounted high in his cheeks, his eyes were flashing, his lips smiling. There was not a trace of the sullenness and reserve Jan had thought the only manner she should ever see in her oldest cousin, as he took off his cap in exaggerated, yet sincere deference, and held out a congratulatory hand.
“How is the poor little beggar? What an outrage! They’ve broken his leg! Bad enough to have a fit without being kicked and punched! A crowd makes me so mad I could knock all the heads together! ”

“ When she did descend upon the platform on the Jersey City side, a trifle sobered by the vastness of the station, the rush of the crowd, and the babel of sounds, there was no line of merry young faces anywhere in sight, no one that could be Uncle Howard or Aunt Tina, not even one who could be Sydney, Gwen, or Gladys. ”

“ Splendid, clever people are the very ones who have to be perfected by suffering, dear little Miss Lochinvar—queer how I’ve come to like that name for you! But you do help. You have no notion how your gentle, affectionate, sunny little presence cheers your aunt and me, and I think Gladys is a much better girl for being with you. ”

“ They only draw you out for pure meanness, and they don’t know anything but just money. But wasn’t it fine of Dorothy Schuyler to squelch them like that? Dolly Schuyler is the most a real lady of any girl in that school. She doesn’t put on airs—of course not, if she is a lady—but she makes all the girls feel that what she says and does is the very last, best thing to be said or done. And she leads us all; not because she wants to, but because she is what she is—all the girls look up to her. ”

“ So Gladys withdrew herself from her sister’s society, since it involved Jan’s, and was more than ever with her objectionable friends, by way of defying Gwen and proving her independence; though the only thing she succeeded in proving thoroughly was proved to herself, and that was that she was very miserable and ashamed of herself.
“I am driving Gladys away,” said Jan forlornly to Gwen one day. “You are never together, and it’s all my fault. I sometimes wish I had never come to New York.” ”

“ Gladys and I were never friends,” said Gwen lightly. Then seeing Jan’s shocked expression, she added: “Not that we were enemies, you know. What I mean is we never were chums. We always liked different things and people. It might as well be you we differ about as anything else. It isn’t you who have done it.”
“But she is with the Hammonds all the time—more92 than when I first came, and you never liked that,” objected Jan.
“Probably it is all for the best. I should think that would be the best way to cure her of liking them,” laughed Gwen. “Don’t worry, Jan. You can’t make everybody alike.” ”

“ The teachers soon liked the sunny girl with the ready dimples and readier wit, joined with honest industry and determination to learn. The girls—the best girls—liked Jan at once, but the little knot of companions whom Gwen had disrespectfully called “that gang” disliked her every day a little more than the previous one, and chiefly because of the liking of the better faction. Gladys—and this was what made the attitude of these girls hard to bear—Gladys arrayed herself with them, and showed positive dislike to “Miss Lochinvar,” who certainly did not deserve it at her hands. ”

“ You have been such a dear old darling, and done so much for me!”
“Not as much as for me,” said Gladys mournfully. “I’m another girl.”
“Never mind if you are, Gladys; you’re nicer all the time,” said Jan. “So try to bear up.”
“We’ll go down and see St. Paul’s, and then we’ll go to Trinity,” announced Gladys, rising with the air of one ready to sacrifice herself for the public weal. “And we’ll rally around you every minute that’s left.”
“Syd, Jack, will you go with us down in town to explore mustiness for Jan?” called Gwen up the stairs. ”

“ Not for nothing had Jan read stories in which looking-glasses had disclosed the secrets of blotters. Locking her door on her arrival in her own room, putting a chair before it in case the impossible should happen and some one should open it, pulling down the shade to the extreme annoyance of Tommy Traddles, sitting on the158 window-sill, and lighting the gas, this solitary conspirator held the blotter before her mirror. ”

“ And I think this trouble at school is a perfect blessing!” cried Jan. “You were all mixed up with that worldly, silly lot of girls, and it was just as bad for you! You’ll be ever so much more sensible and nicer when you are done with them.”
“I hope so,” returned Gladys, evidently not in a mood to take a hopeful view of herself. “If I had been sensible I wouldn’t have liked them—Gwen didn’t. You never can like me as well as Gwen, because she really is sensible, and she’s dreadfully clever, and then she’s been pretty nice to you all along. ”

“ But I have learned a great deal, Janet. I shall never be such a foolish girl again. It is an awful thing to find out your friends are perfectly horrid.”
168 Jan tried not to laugh, but did not succeed very well. Gladys could not be quite simple even under sincere feeling, such as Jan felt sure was moving her now.
“You haven’t found that out about everybody, Gladys. And, honestly, I think the Hammond-Gilsey crowd isn’t much of a loss,” she said.
“No,” said Gladys sadly. “Gwen was right. They’re vulgar, ill-bred girls. But I don’t see why I couldn’t know that as well as Gwen did. ”

“ It really is fun, and more like a play than anything goody-goody. Then if mamma is around when one of us gets mad, she takes that one by the hand and leads him off—sometimes it’s a her, you know—it has been me—been I—and soothes him all down and talks quietly, and we come back feeling as if we had had a bath—a bath for our minds.” Janet’s eyes had grown dim as she talked. The little plain home looked so lovely and peaceful as she recalled it!
Gwen was silent, and at this moment Susan offered Jan a letter. ”

“ Why, you’re descended from them yourself, so you needn’t fire up, Janet Howe.”
“I don’t care; in the West we don’t fuss about trifles. Tell me about Dorothy,” said Janet.
“There isn’t much more to tell, and what there is you’ll find out for yourself. But it was a big thing for Dorothy to champion you. You’ll see that it will make a difference. Both ways,” added Gwen honestly, “for it will make the Hammonds and Floss Gilsey hate you. I wish we could put our heads together to get Gladys away from those girls. ”

“ I don’t see much prospect of any of us going West, Janet, for after Gwen and Gladys are a little further on in their studies they must go to Europe to learn to see art properly, and to learn something of other peoples than their own. But we can not plan; we might be able to make a flying trip with the older children to the Yellowstone, and stop at Crescendo. There’s no way of being sure of the future, impatient Miss Lochinvar! If you girls are going to call on the Misses Larned and Dorothy and Cena before luncheon you would better be about it, for we must lunch at quarter after twelve to-day. ”

“ Gwen lost patience at last with his constant popping in and out of her room and snapped him up.
“Ivan Graham,” she cried, “if you don’t keep out of here, I’ll make you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of me, like a sneak, just because my lock is broken! Aren’t boys a nuisance, Jan?”
“No, but their noise is sometimes,” smiled Jan, with a warning shake of the head at Jack.
The warning came too late. Jan had never seen an exhibition of her little cousin’s temper, though she had been informed more than once that “Jack was a terror when he broke loose.” ”

“ Gwen will have luncheon saved for us—she’s a good fellow when there’s question of helping beasties,” said Sydney. “And I’m rather pleased to have made your acquaintance, Miss Lochinvar—the real Miss Lochinvar.”
“I’ve been just dying to know you, Syd. I miss Fred so dreadfully,” said Jan, smiling with irrepressible joy. “I think we might have real good times—” She stopped abruptly.
“Say, Jan,” said Sydney, not noticing her embarrassment. “You can run like a spider and you have courage and quick wit. Can you play tennis?” ”

“ Joy such as she had not thought that she could feel again surged through Gwen’s heart207 at these words. “Syd,” she said, “if ‘Miss Lochinvar’ had never ‘come out of the West’ we wouldn’t have discovered how horrid it was to be so selfish and distant—maybe never.”
“That’s shaky English, but solemn truth, Gwendoline, my dear,” said Sydney. “Jan’s a trump! That’s two trumps now—we’ll have a handful if we keep on! She’s not one bit goody-goody and she never preaches, but she seems to clear the air—kind of like a thunder-shower that never strikes.” ”