Jean's conscience commanded her instead to hang her riding-clothes in the closet and wear striped percale and a gingham apron, which she hated; and to sweep and dust and remember not to whistle, and to look sympathetic,--which she was not, particularly; and to ask her Aunt Ella frequently if she felt any better, and if there was anything Jean could do for her.

There never was anything she could do, but conscience and custom required her to observe the ceremony of asking.

Aunt Ella found some languid satisfaction in replying dolorously that there was nothing that anybody could do, and that her part in life seemed to be to suffer.
You may judge what Jean's mood was that day, when you are told that she came to the point, not an hour before the bird died, of looking at her aunt with that little smile at the corners of her eyes and just easing her lips.

"Well, you certainly play your part in life with a heap of enthusiasm," she had replied, and had gone out into the kitchen and whistled when she did not feel in the least like whistling.

Her conscience knew Jean pretty well, and did not attempt to reprove her for what she had done.
Then she found the bird dead in the little nest she had made for it, and things went all wrong.
She was returning from the burial of the bird, and was trying to force herself back to her normal attitude of philosophic calm, when she saw her Uncle Carl sitting on the edge of the front porch, with his elbows resting loosely upon his knees, his head bowed, and his boot-heel digging a rude trench in the hard-packed earth.
The sight of him incensed her suddenly.