It didn't make much difference either way; she wasn't long for this world.
The doctor's mother heard the news with ill-concealed satisfaction.
"A most extraordinary thing has occurred here, my dear," she said to one of her Philadelphia friends who was visiting her--she was too politic to talk openly to the neighbors.

"You have, of course, met that Miss Cobden who lives at Yardley--not the pretty one--the plain one.
Well, she is the most quixotic creature in the world.

Only a few weeks ago she wanted to become a nurse in the public hospital here, and now she proposes to close her house and go abroad for nobody knows how long, simply because her younger sister wants to study music, as if a school-girl couldn't get all the instruction of that kind here that is necessary.

Really, I never heard of such a thing." To Mrs.Benson, a neighbor, she said, behind her hand and in strict confidence: "Miss Cobden is morbidly conscientious over trifles.

A fine woman, one of the very finest we have, but a little too strait-laced, and, if I must say it, somewhat commonplace, especially for a woman of her birth and education." To herself she said: "Never while I live shall Jane Cobden marry my John! She can never help any man's career.