CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI

JANE JOURNEYS ON

CHAPTER I

With but one exception, everybody in the upper layer of life in that
placid Vermont village was sure that Jane Vail was going to marry Martin
Wetherby. The one exception was Jane herself; she was not sure--not
entirely.

There were many sound and sensible reasons why she should, and only two
or three rather inconsequent ones why she should not. To begin with, he
was a Wetherby, and the family went steadily back in an unbroken line to
Colonial days; it was their grave old house with the fanlight over its
dignified door which had given Wetherby Ridge its name. He was doing
remarkably well at the bank; it was conceded that he would be assistant
cashier at the first possible moment; his habits were exemplary and he
was the most carefully dressed young man in the community. His mother
freely admitted at the Ladies' Aid and the Tuesday Club that he was as
perfect a son as any woman ever had, and that he would one day make some
girl a perfect husband.

Jane, after long and rebellious thought, could find nothing to set down
on the other side of the ledger beyond the fact that he was just a little
too good-looking, that he was already beginning, at twenty-six, to put on
the flesh which had always been intended for him, that his hands were
softer than hers, with fingers which widened puffily at the base, and
that she nearly always knew what he was going to say before he said it.

She was twenty-four years old, and the immemorial custom of that village
gave her a scant remaining year in which to make up her mind. All girls
who ran true to pattern were either snugly married or serenely teaching
by the time they were twenty-five, and the choice was not always their
own. There had been more marriageable maidens than eligible youths in the
set, and it was rather, Jane told herself grimly, like a game of Musical
Chairs--a gay, excited scramble, and some one always