Jane of Lantern Hill by L. M. Montgomery Read Free Book Online Page A

conscious of its fascination. She had never seen Kenneth Howard…she had no idea who he was or where he lived…but she felt as if it were the picture of someone she knew very well and liked very much. She liked everything about it…his odd, peaked eyebrows…the way his thick, rather unruly hair sprang back from his forehead…the way his firm mouth tucked in at the corners…the slightly stern look in the eyes which yet had such jolly wrinkles at the corners…and the square, cleft chin which reminded Jane so strongly of something, she couldn’t remember just what. That chin seemed like an old friend. Jane looked at the face and drew a long breath. She knew, right off, that if she had loved her father instead of hating him she would have wanted him to look like Kenneth Howard.
    Jane stared at the picture so long that Phyllis became curious.
    â€œWhat are you looking at, Jane?”
    Jane suddenly came to life.
    â€œMay I have this picture, Phyllis…please?”
    â€œWhose picture? Why…that? Do you know him?”
    â€œNo. I never heard of him before. But I like the picture.”
    â€œI don’t.” Phyllis looked at it contemptuously. “Why…he’s old. And he isn’t a bit handsome. There’s a lovely picture of Norman Tait on the next page, Jane…let me show it to you.”
    Jane was not interested in Norman Tait nor any other screen star. Grandmother did not approve of children going to the movies.
    â€œI’d like this picture if I may have it,” she said firmly.
    â€œI guess you can have it,” condescended Phyllis. She thought Jane “dumber” than ever. How she did pity such a dumb girl! “I guess nobody here wants that picture. I don’t like it a bit. He looks as if he was laughing at you behind his eyes.”
    Which was a bit of surprising insight on the part of Phyllis. That was just how Kenneth Howard did look. Only it was nice laughter. Jane felt she wouldn’t mind a bit being laughed at like that. She cut the picture carefully out, carried it home, and hid it under the pile of handkerchiefs in her top bureau drawer. She could hardly have told why she did not want to show it to anybody. Perhaps she did not want anyone to ridicule the picture as Phyllis had done. Perhaps it was just because there seemed some strange bond between her and it…something too beautiful to be talked about to anyone, even mother. Not that there was much chance of talking to mother about anything just now. Never had mother been so brilliant, so gay, so beautifully dressed, so constantly on the go to parties and teas and bridges. Even the good-night kiss had become a rare thing…or Jane thought it had. She did not know that always, when her mother came in late, she tiptoed into Jane’s room and dropped a kiss on Jane’s russet hair…lightly so as not to waken her. Sometimes she cried when she went back to her own room but not often, because it might show at breakfast and old Mrs. Robert Kennedy did not like people who cried o’ nights in her house.
    For three weeks the picture and Jane were the best of friends. She took it out and looked at it whenever she could…she told it all about Jody and about her tribulations with her homework and about her love for mother. She even told it her moon secret. When she lay lonely in her bed, the thought of it was company. She kissed it good-night and took a peep at it the first thing in the morning.
    Then Aunt Gertrude found it.
    The moment Jane came in from St. Agatha’s that day she knew something was wrong. The house, which always seemed to be watching her, was watching her more closely than ever, with a mocking, triumphant malice. Great-grandfather Kennedy scowled more darkly than ever at her from the drawing-room wall. And grandmother was sitting bolt-upright in her chair, flanked by mother and Aunt Gertrude. Mother was twisting a lovely red rose to pieces in