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230 But if you’d rather, I’d take a clam vow right away and keep it, never to sing any more than a clam does, humming in my bed—do clams sing in their clam beds, do you suppose?”

Mrs. Garden’s moods were beginning to be less amazing to her girls; they changed with darting rapidity, swinging from despair to laughter at a word. Now she sat up and laughed, a little tremulously, but still she laughed, drying her eyes and hugging Jane with a funny childish little chuckle.

“Jane, you’re a farce comedy! No wonder you act well—which is not the same as behaving well, miss! ‘A clam vow’ is an entirely new sort! And I certainly do not want you to take one. I see precisely what you mean by your voice being my proxy, my little glowing-haired poet, Jane, and it can be true; it is true; we’ll make it true! What dear children you are, all three of you! Mary, sweetheart, don’t look so troubled! It was bad, downright bad and wicked of me to cry like that. I’m happy now, truly. It was just a minute of wickedness! I felt as though I couldn’t bear it to hear Jane singing at less than half my age, and to know I was silenced forever! It isn’t that I’m not glad Jane can sing, but that I’m sorry that I can’t!