"He's
earnest. He's serious. Besides, he hasn't got a dress-coat."
"Hasn't got a dress-coat?"
"He doesn't approve of them. He thinks they're ugly and foolish and--and
not right. He believes that society is--well, not exactly wrong, but--"
"All the same," declared Mrs. Bates, "he will receive a ticket, and I
shall contrive to let him know that there's a place waiting for him."
"Oh, no! No, you mustn't! What would he ever think of me?"
"I shall, too."
"No! Don't--please don't. He wouldn't know what to think. He might think
that I--"
"I shall, too!" repeated Mrs. Bates, more loudly and stubbornly. "I
shall, too!" She knew that anything less marked than this would be a
chilling disappointment to the girl before her. "And if he hasn't got a
dress-coat, why, he can just get one. I'm sure if a young man cared
anything for me--"
"Oh, don't talk that way--please don't!" implored Jane, half hiding her
face with a kind of despairing joy. "Don't say such things, I beg of
you!"
"--I should expect him to make some little sacrifice for me," Mrs. Bates
completed. "Let him come and look at us; we may not be half so bad as he
imagines."
"Sacrifice." What a delightful and comforting sound the word had to Jane.
It vitalized in a moment all her story-reading of the past ten years.
That anybody should ever be moved to make a sacrifice for _her_!
"But he used to live in the Settlement," persisted Jane; "he used to work
there.
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