simply, "I can ask him."

If Lola wanted to go to Pueblo, she must go. It would be a pity if
Edith May Jonas should have better schooling than Lola, thought Jane.
And as she pondered, it came forcibly to her that money need not be
lacking; she could mortgage her house. She shut her eyes to all future
difficulties which this must involve, and, upon a certain June day, set
resolutely out to see if the doctor were willing to make the loan.

The doctor, sitting in the little office which he had built in the
corner of his shady yard, scowled over his glasses as he listened.

"You're making a mistake," he said, having heard all, "to let Lola
believe that her father is providing for her. I know you began it all
with a view to charitable ends; but he who does evil that good may come
sets his foot in a crooked path, of which none can see the close."

"I didn't want to see her breaking her heart."

"I know, but I do not believe it's ever well to compound and treat with
wrong. If you'll be advised, you'll tell her the whole truth at once."

Jane sat bolt upright before him. Her arms were folded across her
butternut waist, and under the man's hat a grim resolution seemed to be
embodying itself.

"She wouldn't go to school at Pueblo if I told her--nor feel like she
had any home--or anything in the world. And I aint going to tell her!"

"Miss Jane, Miss Jane, don't you see you're doing the girl a real
injury in letting her regard you, her true benefactor, merely as the
agent of her father's generosity? You have simply sustained and
encouraged her worst traits. She wouldn't have been so exacting, so
resentful, so easily provoked if she had known all along that she was
only a poor little pensioner on your bounty. The lesson of humility
would have gone far with her. No, Miss Jane, it wouldn't have hurt her
to be humbled. It won't now!"

"I don't believe it ever does any one any good to be humbled!"
maintained Jane, stoutly and with reason. "Especially if it's a poor,
frail little soul that aint got no mother! I did what I thought best,
though I can't afford it no way in the world! To prune and dress a lie
aint going to make it grow into a truth!" She rose. "I guess I'll see
if Henry Jonas'll be willing to take that mortgage!"

"I'm going to do it myself!" roared the doctor. "I don't want Jonas to
own all the property in Aguilar!" Generosity and anger swayed him
confusedly; but as he watched Jane trudging down under the Dauntle