“Isn’t old Mrs. Douglas a sweet woman?” asked Janet, as they went down the road.

“M—­m,” answered Anne absently.  She was wondering why John Douglas had looked so.

“She’s been a terrible sufferer,” said Janet feelingly.  “She takes terrible spells.  It keeps John all worried up.  He’s scared to leave home for fear his mother will take a spell and nobody there but the hired girl.”

Chapter XXXIII

“He Just Kept Coming and Coming”

Three days later Anne came home from school and found Janet crying.  Tears and Janet seemed so incongruous that Anne was honestly alarmed.

“Oh, what is the matter?” she cried anxiously.

“I’m—­I’m forty today,” sobbed Janet.

“Well, you were nearly that yesterday and it didn’t hurt,” comforted Anne, trying not to smile.

“But—­but,” went on Janet with a big gulp, “John Douglas won’t ask me to marry him.”

“Oh, but he will,” said Anne lamely.  “You must give him time, Janet

“Time!” said Janet with indescribable scorn.  “He has had twenty years.  How much time does he want?”

“Do you mean that John Douglas has been coming to see you for twenty years?”

“He has.  And he has never so much as mentioned marriage to me.  And I don’t believe he ever will now.  I’ve never said a word to a mortal about it, but it seems to me I’ve just got to talk it out with some one at last or go crazy.  John Douglas begun to go with me twenty years ago, before mother died.  Well, he kept coming and coming, and after a spell I begun making quilts and things; but he never said anything about getting married, only just kept coming and coming.  There wasn’t anything I could do.  Mother died when we’d been going together for eight years.  I thought he maybe would speak out then, seeing as I was left alone in the world.  He was real kind and feeling, and did everything he could for me, but he never said marry.  And that’s the way it has been going on ever since.  People blame me for it.  They say I won’t marry him because his mother is so sickly and I don’t want the bother of waiting on her.  Why, I’d love to wait on John’s mother!  But I let them think so.  I’d rather they’d blame me than pity me!  It’s so dreadful humiliating that John won’t ask me.  And why won’t he?  Seems to me if I only knew his reason I wouldn’t mind it so much.”

“Perhaps his mother doesn’t want him to marry anybody,” suggested Anne.

“Oh, she does.  She’s told me time and again that she’d love to see John settled before her time comes.  She’s always giving him hints—­you heard her yourself the other day.  I thought I’d ha’ gone through the floor.”

“It’s beyond me,” said Anne helplessly.  She thought of Ludovic Speed.  But the cases were not parallel.  John Douglas was not a man of Ludovic’s type.

“You should show more spirit, Janet,” she went on resolutely.  “Why didn’t you send him about his business long ago?”