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
