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“He was only a tame old lion,” said Jane impatiently. “I don’t know why people are making such a fuss over it.”

“Jane, my adored Jane, for the sake of your poor father’s nerves, don’t go leading any more lions about the country, tame or otherwise.”

“But it’s not a thing that’s likely to happen again, dad,” said Jane reasonably.

“No, that is so,” said dad, in apparent great relief. “I perceive that it is not likely to become a habit. Only, Janelet, if you some day take a notion to acquire an ichthyosaurus for a family pet, give me a little warning, Jane. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Jane couldn’t understand the sensation the affair made. She hadn’t the least notion she was a heroine.

“I was frightened of him at first,” she told the Jimmy Johns. “But not after he yawned.”

“You’ll be too proud to speak to us now, I s’pose,” said Caraway Snowbeam wistfully, when Jane’s picture came out in the papers. Jane and the barn and the lion had all been photographed … separately. Everybody who had seen them became important. And Mrs Louisa Lyons was a rapturous woman. Her picture was in the paper, too, and also a picture of the rhubarb patch.

“Now I can die happy,” she told Jane. “If Mrs Parker Crosby had got her picture in the paper and I hadn’t, I couldn’t have stood it. I’m sure I don’t know what they did put her picture in for. She didn’t see you and the lion … she only saw me. Well, there are some folks who are never contented unless they’re in the limelight.”

Jane was to go down in Queen’s Shore history as the girl who thought nothing of roaming round the country with a lion or two for company.

“A girl absolutely without fear,” said Step-a-yard, bragging everywhere of his acquaintance with her.

“I realized the first time I saw her that she was superior,” said Uncle Tombstone. Mrs Snowbeam reminded everybody that she had always said that Jane Stuart was a child who would stick at nothing. When Ding-dong Bell and Punch Garland would be old men, they would be saying to each other, “Remember the time Jane Stuart and us drove that lion into the Tanner barn? Didn’t we have a nerve?”

A letter from Jody, blotted with tears, gave Jane a bad night in late August. It was to the effect that she was really going to be sent to an orphanage at last.

“Miss West is going to sell her boarding-house in October and retire,” wrote Jody. “I’ve cried and cried, Jane. I hate the idea of going into an orfanage and I’ll never see you, Jane, and oh, Jane, it isn’t fair. I don’t mean Miss West isn’t fair but something isn’t.”

Jane, too, felt that something wasn’t being fair. And she felt that 60 Gay without her back yard confabs with Jody would be just a little more intolerable than it ever had been. But that didn’t matter as much as poor Jody’s unhappiness. Jane thought Jody might really have an easier time in an orphanage than she had as the little unpaid drudge at 58 Gay, but still she didn’t like the idea any better than Jody did. She looked so downhearted that Step-a- yard noticed it when he came over with some fresh mackerel for her which he had brought from the harbour.

“Do for your dinner to-morrow, Jane.”

“To-morrow is the day for corned beef and cabbage,” said Jane in a scandalized voice. “But we’ll have them the day after. That’s Friday anyhow. Thank you, Step-a-yard.”

“Anything troubling you, Miss Lion-tamer?”

Jane opened her heart to him.

“You just don’t know what poor Jody’s life’s been,” she concluded.

Step-a-yard nodded.

“Put upon and overworked and knocked about from pillar to post, I reckon. Poor kid.”

“And nobody to love her but me. If she goes to an orphanage, I’ll never see her.”

“Well, now.” Step-a-yard scratched his head reflectively. “We must put our heads together, Jane, and see what can be done about it. We must think hard, Jane, we must think hard.”

Jane thought hard to no effect but Step-a-yard’s meditations were more fruitful.

“I’ve been thinking,” he told Jane next day, “what a pity it is the Titus ladies couldn’t adopt Jody. They’ve been wanting to adopt a child for a year now but they can’t agree on what kind of a child they want. Justina wants a girl and Violet wants a boy, though they’d both prefer twins of any sex. But suitable twins looking for parents are kind of scarce, so they’ve given up that idea. Violet wants a dark complected one with brown eyes and Justina wants a fair one with blue eyes. Violet wants one ten years old and Justina wants one about seven. How old is Jody?”

“Twelve, like me.”

Step-a-yard looked gloomy.

“I dunno. That sounds too old for them. But it wouldn’t do any harm to put it up to them. You never can tell what them two girls will do.”

“I’ll see them to-night right after supper,” resolved Jane.

She was so excited that she salted the apple sauce and no one could eat it. As soon as the supper dishes were out of the way … and that night they were not proud of the way they were washed … Jane was off.

There was a wonderful sunset over the harbour, and Jane’s cheeks were red from the stinging kisses of the wind by the time she reached the narrow perfumed Titus lane where the trees seemed trying to touch you. Beyond was the kind, old, welcoming house, mellowed in the sunshine of a hundred summers, and the Titus ladies were sitting before a beechwood fire in their kitchen. Justina was knitting and Violet was clipping creamy bits of toffee from a long, silvery twist, made from a recipe Jane had never yet been able to wheedle out of them.

“Come in, dear. We are glad to see you,” said Justina, kindly and sincerely, though she looked a little apprehensively over Jane’s shoulder, as if she feared a lion might be skulking in the shadows. “It was such a cool evening we decided to have a fire. Sit down, dear. Violet, give her some toffee. She is growing very tall, isn’t she?”

“And handsome,” said Violet. “I like her eyes, don’t you, sister?”

The Titus ladies had a curious habit of talking Jane over before her face as if she wasn’t there. Jane didn’t mind … though they were sometimes not so complimentary.

“I prefer blue eyes, as you know,” said Justina, “but her hair is beautiful.”

“Hardly dark enough for my taste,” said Violet. “I have always admired black hair.”

“The only kind of hair that is really beautiful is curling, red-gold hair,” said Justina. “Her cheek-bones are rather high but her insteps are admirable.”

“She is very brown,” sighed Violet. “But they tell me that is fashionable now. We were very careful of our complexions when we were girls. Our mother, you remember, always made us wear sunbonnets when we went out of doors … pink sunbonnets.”

“Pink sunbonnets! They were blue,” said Justina.

“Pink,” said Violet positively.

“Blue,” said Justina, just as positively.

They argued for ten minutes over the colour of the sunbonnets. When Jane saw they were getting rather warm over it, she mentioned that Miranda Garland was going to be married in two weeks’ time. The Titus ladies forgot the sunbonnets in their excitement.

“Two weeks? That’s very sudden, isn’t it? Of course, it is to Ned Mitchell. I heard they were engaged … even that seemed to me very precipitate when they had been keeping company only six months … but I had no idea they were to be married so soon,” said Violet.

“She does not want to take a chance on his falling in love with a thinner girl,” said Justina.

“They’ve hurried up the wedding so that I can be bridesmaid,” explained Jane proudly.

“She is only seventeen,” said Justina disapprovingly.

“Nineteen, sister,” said Violet.

“Seventeen,” said Justina.

“Nineteen,” said Violet.

Jane cut short what seemed likely to be another ten minutes’ argument over Miranda’s age by saying she was eighteen.

“Oh, well, it’s easy enough to get married,” said Justina. “The trick nowadays seems to be to stay married.”

Jane winced. She knew Justina hadn’t meant to hurt her. But her father and mother hadn’t stayed married.

“I think,” said Violet, kindling, “that P. E. Island has a very good record in that respect. Only two divorces since Confederation … sixty-five years.”

“Only two real ones,” conceded Justina. “But quite a few … at least half a dozen … imitation ones … going to the States and getting a divorce there. And likely to be more from all accounts.”

Violet sent Justina a warning glance which Jane, luckily for her peace of mind, did not intercept. Jane had come to the conclusion that she must mention the object of her call now if she were ever going to do it. No use waiting for a chance … you just had to make your chance.

“I hear you want to adopt a child,” she said, with no beating round the bush.

Again the sisters interchanged glances.

“We’ve been talking of it off and on for a couple of years,” acknowledged Justina.

“We’ve got along as far as both being willing for a little girl,” said Violet with a sigh. “I would have liked a boy … but, as Justina pointed out, neither of us knows anything about dressing a boy. It would be more fun dressing a little girl.”

“A little girl about seven, with blue eyes and fair curling hair and a rosebud mouth,” said Justina firmly.

“A little girl of ten with sloe-black hair and eyes and a creamy skin,” said Violet with equal firmness. “I have given in to you about the sex, sister. It is your turn to give in about the age and the complexion.”

“The age possibly, but not the complexion.”

“I know the very girl for you,” said Jane brazenly. “She’s my chum in Toronto, Jody Turner. I know you’ll love her. Let me tell you about her.”

Jane told them. She left nothing untold that might incline them in Jody’s favour. When she had said what she wanted to say, she held her tongue. Jane always knew the right time to be silent.

The Titus ladies were silent also. Justina went on knitting and Violet, having finished snipping toffee, took up her crocheting. Now and then they lifted their eyes, looked at each other and dropped them again. The fire crackled companionably.

“Is she pretty?” said Justina at last. “We wouldn’t want an ugly child.”

“She will be very handsome when she grows up,” said Jane gravely. “She has the loveliest eyes. Just now she is so thin … and never has any nice clothes.”

“She hasn’t too much bounce, has she?” said Violet. “I don’t like bouncing girls.”

“She doesn’t bounce at all,” said Jane. But this was a mistake because …

“I like a little bounce,” said Justina.

“She wouldn’t want to wear pants, would she?” said Violet. “So many girls do nowadays.”

“I’m sure Jody wouldn’t want to wear anything you didn’t like,” answered Jane.

“I wouldn’t mind girls wearing pants so much if only they didn’t call them pants,” said Justina. “But not pyjamas … never, never pyjamas.”

“Certainly not pyjamas,” said Violet.

“Suppose we got her and couldn’t love her?” said Justina.

“You couldn’t help loving Jody,” said Jane warmly. “She’s sweet.”

“I suppose,” hesitated Justina, “she wouldn’t … there wouldn’t be any danger … of there being … of her having … unpleasant insects about her?”

“Certainly not,” said Jane shocked. “Why, she lives on Gay Street.” For the first time in her life Jane found herself standing up for Gay Street. But even Gay Street must have justice. Jane felt sure there were no unpleasant insects on Gay Street.

“If … if she had … there is such a thing as a fine-tooth comb,” said Violet heroically.

Justina drew her black eyebrows together.

“There has never been any necessity for such an article in our family, Violet.”

Again they knitted and crocheted and interchanged glances. Finally Justina said, “No.”

“No,” said Violet.

“She is too dark,” said Justina.

“She is too old,” said Violet.

“And now that is settled perhaps Jane would like to have some of that Devonshire cream I made to-day,” said Justina.

In spite of the Devonshire cream and the huge bunch of pansies Violet insisted on giving her, Jane went home with a leaden weight of disappointment on her heart. She was surprised to find that Step-a-yard was quite satisfied.

“If they’d told you they’d take her, you’d likely get word to-morrow that they’d changed their minds. Now it’ll be the other way round.”

Still, Jane was very much amazed to get a note from the Titus ladies the next day, telling her that they had, on second thought, decided to adopt Jody and would she come down and help them settle the necessary arrangements.

“We have concluded she is not too old,” said Violet.

“Or too dark,” said Justina.

“You’ll love her I know,” said happy Jane.

“We shall endeavour to be to her as the best and kindest of parents,” said Justina. “We must give her music lessons of course. Do you know if she is musical, Jane?”

“Very,” said Jane, remembering Jody and the piano at 58.

“Think of filling her stocking at Christmas,” said Violet.

“We must get a cow,” said Justina. “She must have a glass of warm milk every night at bedtime.”

“We must furnish the little south-west room for her,” said Violet. “I think I should like a carpet of pale blue, sister.”

“She must not expect to find here the excitements of the mad welter of modern life,” said Justina solemnly, “but we shall try to remember that youth requires companionship and wholesome pleasures.”

“Won’t it be lovely to knit sweaters for her?” said Violet.

“We must get out those little wooden ducks our uncle whittled for us when we were small,” said Justina.

“It will be nice to have something young to love,” said Violet. “I’m only sorry she isn’t twins.”

“On mature reflection,” said Justina, “I am sure you will agree that it is wise for us to find out how we get along with one child before we embark on twins.”

“Will you let her keep a cat?” asked Jane. “She loves cats.”

“I don’t suppose we would object to a bachelor cat,” said Justina cautiously.

It was eventually arranged that when Jane went back to Toronto she was to find someone coming to the Island who might bring Jody along with her, and Justina solemnly counted out and gave into Jane’s keeping enough money for Jody’s travelling expenses and clothes suitable for such travelling.