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.