Plain Jane and pretty Betty

At first Mr. Browning laughed at the suggestion. But he was wise enough to see that Betty was in dead earnest and, realizing his mistake, laughed no more.

He tried reasoning.

“You have all you can do at home here, Betty,” he told her. “What would I do without my housekeeper?”

“I have ever so much time to spare,” Betty returned. “There are hours when I have to sit with my hands folded and nothing to do, or else go for a walk and take a chance of meeting people who—well, who make it a point to be nice to me. It isn’t very pleasant, daddy—and I really want to help.”

That was the way it started.

Mr. Browning could not see at first how he could use Betty in his own business, and he was reluctant to have her try for work anywhere else.

Finally he compromised by saying that she might take charge of the office during Jane’s absence. She could be of real use there when Mr. Browning himself was forced to be absent on business.

A bitter pill for Betty! But she swallowed it bravely and reported promptly Monday morning for work.

It says much for Betty’s change of mood—and mind—that she did not wear an ornate dress in the hope of impressing plain Jane Cross with her superiority, but selected one of plain cloth instead. The very simplicity of this frock made it distinguished, and one could see at a glance that it had never been designed for wear in an office. But it was the most appropriate thing Betty had, and it at least showed a desire to improve.

Mr. Browning regarded the dress approvingly as Betty took off her coat and the line between his brows smoothed out a little.

“She’s true blue,” he thought. “Trust her to make the grade all right.”

Jane took Betty in hand and “showed her the ropes.”

“There really isn’t anything very hard about it,” Jane would say when Betty’s pretty forehead puckered in bewilderment over rows of figures and realty terms that were as clear as day to Jane. “You simply have to get used to it, that’s all. Now, here’s this deed of Mr. Small’s. Suppose he wanted to take up a two-thousand-dollar mortgage on it. What would he do?”

So on and on, coaching, explaining, impervious to Betty’s fits of temper and her pettish moods, until gradually Betty’s tolerance for Jane grew into grudging admiration and finally into a reluctant liking.

“She’s clever,” said Betty, watching the pleasant, energetic girl at her work. “Whatever else she may be, you’ve got to admit she’s clever!”

If Jane had not been Jane, she might have gloated a little at her ascendency over the pretty girl. Instead, she was sorry for her and sincerely wanted to help her.

About the time of the first deep winter snow Jane became conscious of a change in Billy Dobson. Billy had finished and patented a new invention—a new type of store scales that he was enthusiastic over.

He showed the scales to Jane, and she shared his enthusiasm.

“What I need now is money enough to get away from here and interest some big company in the thing,” he told Jane, the old wistful hunger in his eyes. “I know I can put it over this time, Jane! I’m sure I could, if I only had a chance!”

Jane thought of that steadily growing secret fund that she had put away in her drawer against just this emergency. Her rent commissions had increased this some. Now as she waded through the first heavy snowfall of the winter, she decided the time was ripe.

Billy was coming to-night! To-night she would tell him!

Jane was filled with a strange excitement as she went down to the cozy living room that night to wait for Billy. Would he understand what she was trying to do, she wondered, or would he, in his stubborn pride, resent it?

She had not long to ask herself this question, for she had just settled comfortably in one of the mission armchairs when a sharp ring at the bell announced Billy’s arrival.

She ran to answer the doorbell and the young man swept into the house laughing and bringing a draft of cold air with him.

“You look like Santa Claus!” cried Jane, as he shook the snow from his overcoat.

“And feel like it,” laughed Billy.

His face was ruddy from the cold, his blue eyes snapped. He took Jane’s hand and drew her into the living room where he laughingly seated her in a big chair and drew up another close before her.

“Jane,” he announced, “something wonderful has happened! I’ve got my big chance!”

Jane’s heart skipped a beat, two beats!

“Oh, I might have known it by the way you looked! Tell me, Billy! Hurry!”

“I found the names of several big men in the city,” said Billy, “men I thought might be interested in my new type of scales. I described it to them or, at least, just enough to whet their appetites for more—so I hoped. Well,” Billy paused and Jane could see by the tightening of his jaw and the grip of his hand on the chair arm what a great thing this was to him, “I got a letter from one of them to-day, Jane, saying he was interested and would like to see me. He hinted that if my scales were as good as I had led him to believe—and I’ve no doubt on that score, Jane!—he might be ready to talk business!”

“Billy!”

“So I’ve wired to him that I’ll be in town to-morrow! Say, Jane, I want to know—how’s that?”

“Oh, marvelous, Billy! I’m so glad for you! If this man likes your scales, just what will that mean? I’m so ignorant about these things, you know!”

“Mean!” Billy got up and strode about the room, hands thrust deep in his pockets. “It will mean everything, Jane. It means that this man will back my patent by putting up hard cash and in return will get a certain percentage of the profits. But I’ll get a percentage, too—enough probably, if everything goes well, to about fix me for life. How’s that, Jane?”

“I always told you you’d do it, Billy, didn’t I?” Jane looked up at him proudly and Billy, pausing in his restless pacing of the room, sat down again and took her hand gently in his.

“You bet you did, Jane!” he said exuberantly. “And don’t think I’m forgetting the little pal that backed me when every one else was dead set against me. I haven’t won out yet, Jane, but if I do—and I begin to feel now as though I would—I want you to know that a good deal of it is your doing! I don’t think even you know just how much you’ve helped.”

“I’m glad Billy. And—it gives me courage to say something else.” Her voice was little more than a murmur and Billy had to lean close to catch her words. “I thought the time might come when you would need—a little practical help—from your friends. So I—I—oh, here, Billy, take it—and please don’t be offended with me!”

Jane thrust a little packet into his hand, rose quickly and went to the window where she stood looking out into the stormy night.

Billy looked at her wonderingly, then back again to the packet in his hand. Slowly he unwrapped the covering.

A roll of neatly folded bills—that slowly accruing little fund that had lain for so long at the back of Jane’s dresser drawer!

Billy looked at it for a long moment; then he crushed it in his hand and turned to Jane. She was still watching the storm outside the window.

“You meant this for me, Jane?” said Billy slowly.

Wordlessly Jane nodded. She did not turn about or look at him.

Billy got up softly and went over to her. He took her hand, put the roll of bills in it, then closed her fingers over it gently, one by one.

Jane said, in a stifled voice:

“Then—then you don’t need it, Billy?”

“I’ve a little of my own saved up. But, Jane—say, Jane,” his voice had lowered and was very gruff, “I can’t say what I’m feeling. Guess you’ll have to guess at it. But that was more than good of you, Jane!”

The warm clasp of his hand, the look in his eyes, was answer enough for Jane. Billy did not need her money, perhaps, but he did need her friendship.

The next day when she started for her rent route she met Billy. He was going to the station, and if ever any one looked buoyant and hopeful and headed for success, that young man was Billy Dobson.

Betty, from the windows of her father’s office, saw the meeting, and a frown puckered her white forehead.

“I never knew Billy Dobson was so good looking,” she thought. “And there seems to be no doubt whatever what he thinks of Jane. It’s wonderful how that girl, plain as she is, can wind men around her little finger! She has something you haven’t, Betty Browning, for all that your eyes are blue and your hair naturally curly! I wonder if it really was Billy Dobson that set Martin and Hull’s on fire and started all our bad luck! I must say, he doesn’t look like that sort of person.”

Betty saw Jane hold out both her hands impulsively and saw the eager way the youth grasped them. Then Billy was gone, with a buoyant lift of his hat, and Jane, in her shabby coat, disappeared around the corner.

With a sigh Betty turned to the tiresome work of straightening up Jane’s desk and her father’s and laying the latter’s letters close to his hand.

It was several hours later, and Mr. Browning had been in, consulted with several clients and gone out again with one of them to arrange a new lease on some property or other—Betty could never remember the details of these transactions as Jane did—and Betty was once more alone and feeling rather bored when the door opened and a shabby, poorly dressed old woman entered the office.

Betty looked up, surprised as the newcomer paused at the door and seemed in doubt whether to advance or retreat.

“Come in,” said Betty. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Well,” hesitated the woman, “I was hoping to see Mr. Browning—or Miss Jane Cross.”

Betty winced inwardly, as she still did when any one expressed a preference for Jane, but she said politely enough:

“Mr. Browning and Miss Cross are both out at present. If you will leave a message with me, I’ll see that it gets to them safely.”

“We—ell—” The woman came forward and seated herself gingerly on the edge of a chair. “I came to tell you what started the Martin and Hull fire.”

Betty could be pardoned for her stare of amazement.

“You have?” she asked incredulously.

“Leastways, my husband says he thinks he knows what started it,” the old woman continued, taking no note of Betty’s amazement. “He never listens much to what people are sayin’ or what gossip goes about the town but the other evenin’ when he heard some of the men talkin’ about Billy Dobson and sayin’ as how the lad had set Martin and Hull’s on fire, why, that sort of got him right het up, as you might say, and he says right off that he knowed what set the place afire.”

“What did?” cried Betty excitedly. Here, miraculously, it seemed, was the answer to the question she had asked herself only that morning!

“The wires was all wrong,” said the woman, whose name was Mrs. Shiff. “Martin Shiff—that’s my man—and he’s a lineman for the electric light company—says as how he told Mr. Hull time and again there’d be trouble if they didn’t get busy and have some new wirin’ done. But the old man kept puttin’ it off and off, and Martin says it looks like he just got what was coming to him.”

Betty had jumped to her feet. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright.

“Is your husband sure of this?”

“He’s as sure,” said Mrs. Shiff dryly, “as he can be of anything on this earth!”