Jane of Lantern Hill Read Free

thought candidly that he looked as if he would enjoy biting a nail in two.
    â€œTurn to the fourteenth chapter of Exodus, ” grandmother would say. The chapter varied every night, of course, but the tone never did. It always rattled Jane so that she generally made a muddle of finding the right place. And grandmother, with the hateful little smile which seemed to say, “So you can’t even do this as it should be done,” would put out her lean, crêpey hand, with its rich old-fashioned rings, and turn to the right place with uncanny precision. Jane would stumble through the chapter, mispronouncing words she knew perfectly well just because she was so nervous. Sometimes grandmother would say, “A little louder, if you please, Victoria. I thought when I sent you to St. Agatha’s they would at least teach you to open your mouth when reading even if they couldn’t teach you geography and history.” And Jane would raise her voice so suddenly that Aunt Gertrude would jump. But the next evening it might be, “Not quite so loud, Victoria, if you please. We are not deaf.” And poor Jane’s voice would die away to little more than a whisper.
    When she had finished, grandmother and Aunt Gertrude would bow their heads and repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Jane would try to say it with them, which was a difficult thing, because grandmother was generally two words ahead of Aunt Gertrude. Jane always said, “Amen,” thankfully. The beautiful prayer, haloed with all the loveliness of agelong worship, had become a sort of horror to Jane.
    Then Aunt Gertrude would close the Bible and put it back in exactly the same place, to the fraction of a hair, on the center table. Finally Jane had to kiss her and grandmother good-night. Grandmother would always remain sitting in her chair and Jane would stoop and kiss her forehead.
    â€œGood night, grandmother.”
    â€œGood night, Victoria.”
    But Aunt Gertrude would be standing by the center table and Jane would have to reach up to her, for Aunt Gertrude was tall. Aunt Gertrude would stoop just a little and Jane would kiss her narrow gray face.
    â€œGood night, Aunt Gertrude.”
    â€œGood night, Victoria,” Aunt Gertrude would say in her thin, cold voice.
    And Jane would get herself out of the room, sometimes lucky enough not to knock anything over.
    â€œWhen I grow up I’ll never, never read the Bible or say that prayer,” she would whisper to herself as she climbed the long, magnificent staircase which had once been the talk of Toronto.
    One night grandmother had smiled and said, “What do you think of the Bible, Victoria?”
    â€œI think it is very dull,” said Jane truthfully. The reading had been a chapter full of “knops” and “taches,” and Jane had not the least idea what knops and taches were.
    â€œAh! But do you think your opinion counts for a great deal?” said grandmother, smiling with paper-thin lips.
    â€œWhy did you ask me for it then?” said Jane, and had been icily rebuked for impertinence when she had not had the least intention of being impertinent. Was it any wonder she went up the staircase that night fairly loathing 60 Gay? And she did not want to loathe it. She wanted to love it…to be friends with it…to do things for it. But she could not love it…it wouldn’t be friendly…and there was nothing it wanted done. Aunt Gertrude and Mary Price, the cook, and Frank Davis, the houseman and chauffeur, did everything for it. Aunt Gertrude would not let grandmother keep a housemaid because she preferred to attend to the house herself. Tall, shadowy, reserved Aunt Gertrude, who was so totally unlike mother that Jane found it hard to believe they were even half-sisters, was a martinet for order and system. At 60 Gay everything had to be done in a certain way on a certain day. The house was really frightfully clean. Aunt Gertrude’s cold gray eyes