'Thunderation, mother!' Tom exclaimed, 'would you have me yell and scream, and make a fool of myself? I sat up all night long, which was more than you did, and I've been meditating in the woods, and have seen Maude and made it square with her. What more can I do?'

'You can see to things,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'Your father is all broken up and has gone to bed, and it is not becoming in me to be around. Somebody must take the helm.'

'And somebody has,' Tom answered her. 'Uncle Arthur is master of the ceremonies now. He is running the ranch, and running it well, to.'

And Tom was right, for Arthur had taken the helm, and aided and abetted by Jerrie, was quietly attending to matters and arranging for the funeral, which Dolly said must be in the house, as she would not go to the church, with a gaping crowd to stare at her. So it was to take place at the house on Friday afternoon, and Arthur ordered a costly coffin from New York, with silver mountings and panels, and almost a car-load of flowers and floral designs, for Jerrie had explained to him Maude's wishes with regard to her grave, which they lined first with the freshest of the boughs from the four pines, filling these again with flowers up to the very top, so that the grave when finished seemed like one mass of flowers, in which it would not be hard to lie.

Dolly had objected to Billy as one of the pall-bearers. He was too short and inferior looking, she said, and not at all in harmony with Dick, and Fred, and Paul Crosby, the young man who, in Harold's absence, had been asked to take his place. But Arthur overruled her with the words 'It was Maude's wish,' and Billy kept his post.

The day arrived, and the hour, and the people came in greater crowds than they had done when poor Jack was buried, or the dark woman, Nannine, with only Jerrie as chief mourner, and the procession was the longest ever seen in Shannondale; and Dolly, even while her heart was aching with bitter pain, felt a thrill of pride that so many were following her daughter to the grave.

Arrived at the cemetery, there was a halt for the mourners to alight and the bearers to take the coffins from the hearse and carry it to the grave—a halt longer than necessary, it seemed to Jerrie, who under the folds of her veil did not see the tall young man making his way through the ranks of the people crowding the road, straining every nerve to reach the hearse, which he did just as the four young men were taking the coffin from it.

With a quick movement he put Paul Crosby aside, saying, apologetically:

'Excuse me, Paul. I must carry Maude to her grave. She wished it so.'

Then, taking the young man's place, he went slowly on to the open grave near which piles and piles of flowers were lying ready to cover the young girl who it was hard for him to believe was there beneath his hand, cold and dead, with no word of welcome for him who had tried so hard to see her, and was only in time for this, to help lay her in the grave and to listen to the solemn words 'ashes to ashes,' and hear the dreadful sound of earth to earth falling upon the box which held the beautiful coffin and the lovely girl within it.

Even then Jerrie did not see him, but when she took a step or two forward to look into the grave before it was filled up, and someone put a hand upon her shoulder and said, 'Not too near, Jerrie,' she started suddenly, with a suppressed cry, and turning, saw Harold standing by her, tall, and erect, and self-possessed, as he faced the multitude, some of whom had suspected him of a crime, but all of whom were ready now to do him justice and bid him welcome home.

'Oh, Harold,' Jerrie said, as she grasped his arm, 'I am so glad you are here. I wish you had come before.'

Harold could not reply, for they were now leaving the spot, and many gathered around him; first and foremost, Peterkin, who came tramping through the grass, puffing like an engine, and, unmindful of the time or place, slapping him upon the shoulder, as he said: 'Well, my boy, glad to see you back, 'pon my soul, I be; but you flustrated all my plans. I was meanin' to give you an oblation; got it, all arranged, and you spiled it by takin' us onawares, like a thief in the night. I beg your pardon,' he continued, as he met a curious look in Harold's eyes, 'I'm a blunderin' cuss, I be. I didn't mean nothin', I've ever meant nothin', and if I hev' I'm sorry for it.'

Harold did not hear the last, for he was handing Jerrie into the carriage with her father, who bade him enter, too; saying they would leave him at the cottage where he wished to go as soon as possible. There was no time for much conversation before the cottage was reached, and Harold alighted at the gate, and no allusion whatever had been made to Jerrie's changed relations until Harold stood looking at her as she kept her seat by her father and made no sign of an intention to stop. Then he said, as calmly as he could:

'Do you stay at the Park House altogether now?'

'Oh, no,' she answered quickly. 'I have been there a great deal with Maude, but am coming home to-night. I could not leave grandma alone, you know.'

She acknowledged the home and the relationship still, and Harold's face flushed with a look of pleasure, which deepened in intensity when Arthur, with a wave of the hand habitual to him, said:

'I must keep her now that you are here to see to the grandmother, but will let you have her to-night. Come up later, if you like, and walk home with her.'

'I shall be most happy to do so,' Harold said, and then the carriage drove away, while he went in to his grandmother, who had not attended the funeral, but who knew that he had returned and was waiting for him.



CHAPTER LI.

UNDER THE PINES WITH HAROLD.

It seemed to Harold that it had been a thousand years since he had left Shannondale, so much had come into and so much had gone out of his life since he said good-bye to the girl he loved and to the girl who loved him. One was dead, and he had only come in time to help lay her in her grave; while the other, the girl he loved, was, some might think, farther removed from him than death itself could have removed her.

But Harold did not feel so. He had faith in Jerrie—that she would not change, though there had been a time during the first homesick weeks in Tacoma, when, knowing from his grandmother of her convalescence, and still hearing from her no explanation with regard to the diamonds, which he knew a few still suspected him of having taken, in his impatience and humiliation he had cried out, 'Jerrie has forgotten. She is not standing by me, forever and ever, amen, as she once promised to do.' But this feeling quickly passed, and there came a day when he read the judge's letter in the privacy of his room at the Tacoma, and rejoiced with an exceeding great joy for Jerrie, whose house and birthright had been so strangely restored. He never doubted the story for a moment, but felt rather as if he had known it always, and wondered how any one could have imagined for a moment that blue-eyed, golden-haired Jerrie was the child of the dark, coarse looking woman found dead beside her. 'I am so glad for Jerrie,' he said, without a thought that her relations to himself would in any way be changed.

Once, when she had told him of the fancies which haunted her so often, he had put them from him with a fear that, were they true, Jerrie would be lost to him forever. But he had no such misgivings now; and when Jerrie's letter came, urging his return, both for her own sake and Maude's, he wrote a few hurried lines to her, telling her how glad he was for her, and of his intention to start for the East as soon as possible. 'To-morrow, perhaps,' he wrote, 'in which case I may be there before this letter reaches you, for the mails are sometimes slow, and the judge's communication was overdue three or four days.'

Starting the second day after his letter, Harold travelled day and night, while something seemed beckoning him on—Maude's thin, white face, and Jerrie's, too; and when, between St. Paul and Chicago, there came a detention from a freight car off the track, he felt that he must fly, so sure was he that he was wanted and anxiously looked for at Tracy Park, where at that very time Maude was dying. The next afternoon he left Chicago, and with no further accident reached Shannondale just as the long procession was winding its way to the cemetery.

He had heard from an acquaintance in Springfield that Maude was dead, and of her request that he should be one of the pall-bearers, together with Dick, and Fred, and Billy. 'And I will do it yet,' he said, with a throb of pain, as he thought of the little girl who had died believing that he loved her. Once or twice he had resolved to write and tell her as carefully as possible of her mistake, but as often had changed his mind, thinking to wait until she was better; and now she was dead, and the chance for explanation gone forever; but he would, if possible, carry out the wish she had expressed with regard to himself.

Striking into the fields from the station, he reached the cemetery in time to take his place by Billy and carry poor little Maude to her last resting place; and then he looked for Jerrie, and felt an indefinable thrill when he saw her on her father's arm, and began to realize that she was Jerrie Tracy. But all that was over now; he had talked with her face to face, and had found her the Jerrie he had always known, and he was going to see her in her own home, at Tracy Park—the daughter of the house, the heiress of Arthur Tracy, and of more than two millions, it was said—for, despite Frank's extravagance, all of which Arthur had met without a protest, his money had accumulated rapidly, so that he was a much richer man now, than when he first came home from Europe.

Harold found the family at dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Tracy and Tom in the dining-room, and Arthur and Jerrie in the Gretchen room, to which he was taken at once.

'Come in—come in, my boy. You are just in time for dessert,' Arthur said, rising with alacrity and going forward to meet him; while Jerrie, too, arose and took his hand, and made him sit by her, and questioned him on his journey, and helped him to the fairest peach and the finest bunch of grapes, and, without seeming to do so, examined him from head to foot, and thought how handsome and grand he was, and felt sure that her father thought so too.

With a part of the first money Billy had paid him, or rather had told him to draw in Tacoma, Harold had bought himself the clothes which he needed sadly; and though it was only a business suit, and had travelled thousands of miles, it fitted him well, and it was not at all a shabby Harold sitting at Arthur's table, but a young man of whom anyone might have been proud. And Jerrie was proud of him and of her father, too, as they talked together; and Harold showed no sign of any inequality, even if he felt it, which he did not.

'A fine young man, with the best of manners, and carries himself as he were the lord high chancellor,' Arthur said, when, after dinner, Harold left there to pay his respects to the other inmates of the family, whom he found just leaving the dining-room.

Dolly bowed to him coldly at first, and was about to pass on, when, with a burst of tears, she offered him her hand, and sobbed:

'Oh, Harold, why didn't you come before? Maude wanted to see you so badly.'

This was a great deal for Dolly, and Tom stared at her in amazement, while Harold explained that he had come as soon as he possibly could, and tried to say something of Maude, but could not, for the tears which choked him. Frank was unfeignedly glad to see him, and told him so.

'Our dear little girl was fond of you, Hal. I am sure she was, and I shall always like you for that. Heaven bless you, my boy,' he said, as he wrung Harold's hand and then hurried away after his wife, leaving Harold alone with Tom, who, awfully afraid he should break down, said, indifferently:

'Glad to see you, Hal. Wish you had come before Maude died. She was in a tearin' way to see you. Have a cigar? Got a prime lot in my room. Will you go there?

Harold was in no mood for cigars, and, declining Tom's offer, sauntered awhile around the grounds, where he found himself constantly expecting to find the dead girl sitting under a tree wailing for him with the light whose meaning he now knew kindling in her beautiful eyes as she bade him welcome and told him how glad she was to see him. He was glad now that he had not written and told her of her mistake, and he felt in his heart a greater tenderness for the Maude dead than he ever could have felt for the Maude living.

It was beginning to grow dark when he returned to the house where he found Jerrie in the hall ready to go home. Arthur was at her side, with his arm thrown lovingly around her, and as he passed her over to Harold, he said:

'Make the most of her to-night, my boy, for to-morrow she comes home to stay. Heaven bless you, my daughter!'

His words sent a thrill through both Harold and Jerrie, who walked on in silence until they reached the four pines, where Jerrie halted suddenly and said:

'Let us sit down, Harold. I have a message from Maude, which I promised to deliver the first time we were alone together after you came home.'

Jerrie's voice trembled a little, and after they were seated she was silent until Harold said to her:

'You were going to tell me of Maude;' then she started and replied:

'Yes; she wanted so much to see you and tell you herself. I don't know what she meant, but she said she had made a mistake, and I must tell you so, and that you would understand it. She had been thinking and thinking, she said, and knew it was a stupid blunder of hers; that was what she called it—a stupid blunder; and she was sorry for you that she had made it, and bade me say so, and tell you no one knew but herself and you. Dear little Maude! I wish she had not died.'

Jerrie was crying now, and perhaps that was the reason she did not mind when Harold put his arm around her and drew her closer to him, so close that his brown hair touched her golden curls, for the night was warm and she had brought her bonnet in her hand all the way, while he had taken off his hat when they sat down under the pines, which moaned and sighed above them for a moment, and then grew still, as if listening for what Harold would say.

'Yea,' he began slowly, 'I think I know what Maude meant by the mistake. Did she say I must tell you what it was?'

'She said you would tell me, but perhaps you'd better not,' Jerrie replied,

'Yes, I must tell you,' he continued, 'as a preliminary to what I have to say to you afterward, and what I did not mean to say quite so soon; but this decides me,' and Harold drew Jerrie a little closer to him as he went on: 'Did you ever think that I loved poor little Maude?'

'Yes, I have thought so,' was Jerrie's answer.

'She thought so, too,' Harold continued, 'and it was all my fault; my blunder, not hers. I loved her as I would a sister; as I did you in the olden days, Jerrie. She was so sweet and good, and so interested in you and all I wanted to do for you, that I regarded her as a very dear friend, nothing more. And because I looked upon her this way, I foolishly went to her once to confess my love for another; her dearest and most intimate friend, and ask if she thought I had a chance for success. I must have bungled strangely, for she mistook my meaning and thought I was speaking of herself and in a way she accepted me; and before I had time to explain, her mother came in and I have never seen her since; but I shall never forget the eyes which looked at me so gladly, smiting me so cruelly for the delusion in which I had to leave her. That is what Maude meant. She saw the mistake, and wished to rectify it by giving me the chance to tell you myself what I wanted to tell you then and dared not.'

Jerrie trembled violently, but made no answer, and Harold went on:

'It may seem strange that I, who used to be so much afraid of Jerrie Crawford that I dared not tell her of my love, have the courage to do it now that she is Jerrie Tracy, and I do not understand it myself. Once when you told me your fancies concerning your birth, a great fear took possession of me, lest I should lose you, if they were true; but when I heard that they were true, I felt so sure of you that I could scarcely wait for the time when I could ask you, as I now do, to be my wife, poor as I am, with nothing but love to give you. Will you, Jerrie?'

His face was so close to hers now that her hot cheeks touched his as she bent her head lower and lower, but she made no reply for a moment, and then she cried:

'Oh, Harold, it seems so soon, with Maude only buried to-day. What shall I say? What ought I to say?'

'Shall I tell you?' he answered, taking her hand in his. 'Say the first English word you ever spoke, and which I taught you. Do you remember it?'

'Iss' came involuntarily from Jerrie, in the quick, lisping accent of her babyhood, when that was all the English she could master; and almost before it had escaped her, Harold smothered it with the kisses he pressed upon her lips as he claimed her for his own.

'But, Harold,' she tried to explain between his kisses, 'I meant that I did remember. You must not—you must not kiss me so fast. You take my breath away. There! I won't stand it any longer. I'm going straight home to tell grandma how you act!'

'And so am I,' Harold said, rising as she did, but keeping his arm around her as they went slowly along in the soft September night, with the stars, which were shining for the first time on Maude's grave, looking down upon then, and a thought of Maude in their hearts, and her dear name often upon their lips, as they talked of the past as lovers will, trying to recall just when it was that friendship ceased and love began, and deciding finally that neither knew nor cared when it was, so great was their present joy and anticipation of the future.



CHAPTER LII.

'FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.'

'Grandma, Jerrie has promised to be my wife!' Harold said to his grandmother that night when he took Jerrie in to her about ten o'clock, during which time they had walked to the Tramp House, and sitting down upon the chair which would hold but one, had talked the whole matter over, from the morning Harold first saw the sweet little face in the carpet-bag to the present moment when the same sweet face was pressed lovingly against his, and the same arms which had clung to him in the snow were around his neck in the darkness, as they went over with the old, old story, newest always and best to the last one who listens to it and believes that it is true.

'Father, I have promised to marry Harold,' Jerrie said to Arthur the next morning as she stood before him in the Gretchen room, with Harold's hand in hers, and a look in her face something like what Gretchen's had worn when Arthur first called her his wife.

'Lord bless you, I knew it was coming, but did not think it would be quite so soon. You shock my nerves dreadfully,' Arthur exclaimed, springing up and walking two or three times across the room. Then, confronting the young couple, he said, 'Going to marry Harold? I knew you would all this time. Well, he will do as well as any one to look after the business. Frank is no good, and Colvin is too old. So, get married at once, within a week if you like. I'm off for Germany next month, to find Gretchen's grave, and the house, and the picture, and everything, and as I shall take you with me I shall need some one with brains to look after things while I am gone.'

'But father,' Jerrie began, 'if I go to Germany, Harold will go, too, and if he stops here, I shall stay.'

Arthur looked at her inquiringly a moment, and then, as he begun to understand, replied: 'Ah, yes, I see; "where thou goest, I go, and where thou—" and so forth, and so forth. Well, all right; only you must come here directly; it will never do to stay there, now you are engaged; and you must be married in this room, with Gretchen looking on, and soon, too. No wedding, of course, Maude's death is too recent for that; but soon, very soon, so we can get off. I'll engage passage at once in the Germanic, which sails the 15th of October, and you shall be married the 10th. That's three weeks from to-day, and will give you a few days in New York. I'll leave Frank here till we return, and then he must go, of course, and the new mistress step in with Mrs. Crawford to superintend. We will get some nice man and woman to stay with her while we are gone.'

He had settled everything rapidly, but Jerrie had something to say upon the subject. She did not wish to come to Tracy Park altogether while Mrs. Tracy was there; she would rather enjoy the lovely room which Harold had built for her, she said, and preferred to be married in the cottage, the only home she had ever known.

'I shall stay with you all day,' she continued, 'but go home at night.'

'And so have a long walk with Harold. Yes, I see,' Arthur said, laughingly, but assenting finally to her proposal.

It was Jerrie now who planned everything, with Harold's assistance, and who broached the subject of Frank's future to her father, asking what provision he intended to make for him when he left Tracy Park.

'What provision?' Arthur said. 'I guess he has made provision for himself all these years, when my purse has been as free to him as myself. Colvin tells me there has been an awful lot of money spent somewhere.'

'Yes,' Jerrie replied, 'but you gave him permission to spend it, and it would hardly be fair now to leave him with little or nothing, and he so broken down. When Maude feared she was going to die, and before she knew who I was, she wrote a letter for her father and you, asking him to give me what he would have given her, and you to do the same. So now, I want you to give Maude's father what you would have given me for Maude's sake.'

'Bless my soul, Jerrie!' Arthur said. 'What a beggar you are! I don't know what I should have given you; all I am worth, perhaps. How much will satisfy you for Frank? Tell me, and it is done.'

Jerrie thought one hundred thousand dollars would not be any too much, nor did it seem so to Arthur, who placed but little value upon his money, and Jerrie was deputed to tell her uncle what provision was to be made for him, and that, if he wished, he was to remain at the park until his brother's return from Europe.

Frank was not in his own room, but Mrs. Tracy was, and to her Jerrie first communicated the intelligence that she was to be married and go with her father to Germany. The look which the highly scandalized lady gave her was wonderful, as she said:

'Married! almost before the crape is off the door, or the flowers wilted on Maude's grave! Well, that shows how little we are missed; and I am not surprised, though I think Maude would be, at Harold, certainly. I suppose you know there was something between them; but a man will do any thing for money. I wish you joy of your husband.'

Jerrie was too indignant to explain any thing, and hurried off in quest of her uncle, whom she found in Maude's room, where he spent the most of his time, walking up and down and examining the different articles which had belonged to his daughter, and which, at his request, remained untouched as she had left them. Her brushes, her comb, her bottled perfumery, her work-box, her Bible, a little half-finished sketch, and her soft bed-slippers she had worn when she died, and one of which he held in his hand when Jerrie went in to him.

'It is so like Maude,' he said, with quivering lips, as she went to his side, 'and when I hold it in my hand I can almost hear the dear little feet, which I know are cold and dead, coming along the hall as she used to come, and will never come again. I think I should like to die here in this room and go where Maude has gone, and I believe I should go there. I am sure God has forgiven me, and Maude forgave me, too, for I told her.'

'You did! I thought so,' Jerrie said.

'Yes, I had to tell her,' he continued, 'and I am glad I did, and she loved me just the same. You saw her die. You heard what she said to me. She must have believed in me, and that keeps me from going mad. I told Dolly, too; the shadow was so black I had to; and she said she'd never speak to me again as long as she lived, and she didn't either until last night, when I was alone in here, crying on Maude's bed; then she came to me and called me Frank, and said she was sorry she had been so hard, and asked me what we were going to do, and where we were going. I'm sure I don't know; do you?'

He was so broken, so like a child in his appeal to her, that Jerrie's tears came fast as she told him of her approaching marriage and what her father intended doing for him. Then Frank broke down entirely, and cried like a child.

'I don't deserve it, and I know I owe it to you, whom I have injured so much,' he said, while Jerrie tried to comfort him.

'I must go back now to father,' she said at last; and, with a kiss upon his worn face, she went out into the hall, where she encountered Tom just coming from his mother's room.

'Hallo!' Tom cried, with an attempt at a smile, 'and so you are going to marry Harold?'

'Yes, Tom; I'm going to marry Harold,' Jerrie replied, unhesitatingly, as she laid her hand on Tom's arm and walked with him down the stairs.

It seemed to her the most natural thing in the world that she should marry Harold, and she was not at all abashed in speaking of it to Tom; but when outside they saw Harold coming up the walk, the color rushed to her cheeks, and her eyes grew wondrously bright with the love-light which shown in them, as she dropped Tom's arm and hurried to Harold's side.

'By George, I b'lieve I'll go and hang myself!' Tom said, under his breath, as he stalked moodily away; but instead of that he went across the fields to Le Bateau, where he sat for an hour, talking with old Peterkin and waiting for Ann Eliza, who had gone to Springfield, her father said, after a new gown, for which he was to pay two hundred dollars.

'Think on't!' he continued. 'When we was fust married and run the 'Liza Ann, the best gown May Jane had to her back was a mereener or balzarine—dummed if I know what you call it—at one and ninepence a yard; but now, lord land, what's two hundred dollar gownd to me! Ann Eliza can have forty on 'em, if she wants to. There she is; there's the kerridge! By gosh, though, ain't she a neat little filly!' and the father's face glowed with pride as he watched his daughter alighting from the carriage, to which Tom had hastened in order to assist her, for she was still a little lame and limped as she walked.

He saw the two hundred dollar gown, for Peterkin would have it displayed, and admired it, of course, and wished thut he had half the sum it cost in his own right, and wondered if he could stand it, as he walked slowly home, where he heard from his mother that they were still to remain at Tracy Park for a while, and that his father was to have one hundred thousand dollars settled upon him.

'I guess now I'll wait a spell, and let old Peterkin go to thunder,' he decided, and for two weeks and more Ann Eliza watched in vain for his coming, while Peterkin remarked to his wife that if Tom Tracy was goin' to play fast and loose with his gal, he'd find himself brought up standin' mighty lively.

The news that Harold and Jerrie were soon to be married, and go with Arthur to Germany, created some surprise, and some talk, too, in town, where many of the people had believed that there had been an understanding, if not an engagement, between Harold and Maude. But Tom put that right with a few decided words. There had never been an engagement, he said. Maude had liked Harold very much, and he had liked her, but had always preferred Jerrie; in short, matters had been as good as settled between them, long ago.

This last was a little fiction of Tom's brain, but the people accepted it as true, and began to look eagerly forward to the approaching marriage, wondering, as people will, who would be invited, and who would not. It took place the 10th of October, in Mrs. Crawford's little parlor, with only a few intimate friends present—Grace Atherton, the St. Claires, Ann Eliza Peterkin, and the Tracys, with the exception of Dolly, who could not do so great violence to her feeling, as to attend a wedding. Billy was not there, but he sent a magnificent emerald ring to Jerrie, with the following note:

DEAR JERRIE,—I can't see you married, although I am glad for you, and glad for Hal. God bless you both. I shall never forget you as long as I live; and when you come back, maybe I can bear to see you as Hal's wife, but now it would kill me. Good-bye.

Jerrie read this note with wet eyes up in her room, and then passed it to Harold, to whom she told of that episode under the butternut tree, when Billy asked her to be his wife.

'Poor Billy! I am awful sorry for him, but I can't let him have you, Jerrie,' Harold said, passing the note back to her, and kissing her tenderly, as he added: 'That is my last kiss for Jerrie Tracy, my little girl of the carpet-bag. When I kiss you again, you will be my wife.'

'Come, children, we are waiting,' came with startling distinctness from Arthur at the foot of the stairs, and then Harold and Jerrie went down to the parlor, where they were soon made one, Arthur giving the bride away, and behaving pretty well under the circumstances.

He had been very flighty the day before, insisting that Jerrie should be married in white, with a blue ribbon on her bonnet, just as Gretchen had been, and when she reminded him of Maude's recent death, he replied:

'Well, Gretchen will wear colors if you do not.'

And again he brought out and laid upon his bed the dress bought in Paris years before, and which had been waiting for Gretchen on that stormy night when he heard the wild cry of the dying woman above the wintery gale. She was with him again in fancy, and when he went out to the carriage which was to carry him to the cottage, he stepped back and stood a moment by the door as if to let some one enter before him, and all during the ceremony those nearest to him heard him whispering to himself, 'I, Arthur, take thee, Gretchen,' and so forth; but when it was over he came to himself and seemed perfectly rational, as he kissed his daughter and shook hands with his son-in-law, to whom he gave a check for ten thousand dollars, saying as he did so, that young men must have a little spending money.

It was a very pleasant wedding, and every one seemed happy, even to Dick, whose spirits, however, were rather too gay to be quite natural, and whose voice shook just a little as he called Jerrie Mrs. Hasting, and told her he hoped to see her in Paris in the spring as he thought of going over there with Nina to join the Raymonds.

'Oh, I hope you will! Nothing could make me so happy as to meet you there,' Jerrie said, looking at him with an expression which told him she was thinking of the pines and was sorry for him.

The newly married pair were going directly to New York, where Arthur was to join them on the 4th, as the Germanic sailed the 15th.

All the wedding guests accompanied them to the station, Tom accepting a seat in the coupe with Ann Eliza, who wore her two hundred dollar gown, and was, of course, overdressed. But Tom did not think much about that. He was ill at ease that morning, though trying to seem natural; and when the train which took Jerrie away disappeared from view, he felt as if everything which had made life desirable had left him forever, and he cared but little now what he did, or with whom his lot was cast.

So when Ann Eliza, who had cried at parting with Jerrie, dried her eyes and said to him, 'It is such a fine day; suppose we drive along the river; it may dispel the blues,' he assented, and soon found himself bowling along the smooth turnpike with Ann Eliza, whom he thought rather interesting, with the tears shed for Jerrie on her long, light eyelashes.

'I shall miss her so much, and be so lonely without her. I hope you'll call often,' she said to him, when at last the drive was over, and Tom promised that he would, and kept his promise, too; for after Arthur left, he found Tracy Park so insupportably dull, with his father always in Maude's room and his mother always in tears, that it was a relief to go to Le Bateau and be made much of as if he were a prince and treated to nice little lunches and suppers, even if old Peterkin did make one of the party and disgust him so at times that he felt as if he must snatch up his hat and fly.

And one night, when the old man had been more than usually disagreeable and pompous, he did start up abruptly and leave the house, mentally vowing never to enter it again.

'I'd rather saw wood and gather swill, as Hal used to, than listen to that infernal old brag,' he was saying to himself, when he heard a wheezy sound behind him, and looking round saw the old brag in full pursuit and beckoning him to stop.

'I'm goin' to walk a spell with you,' he said, locking his arm in Tom's as he came up. 'I want to have a little talk.'

'Yes,' Tom faltered, with a dreadful sinking of the heart, while Peterkin went on:

'You see you've been a comin' to Lubbertoo off and on for mighty nigh a month, and as the parents of a family it's time I as't your intentions.'

'Intentions!' Tom stammered, trying to draw his arm from Peterkin's.

But he might as well have tried to wrench it from a vise, for Peterkin held it fast and went on:

'Yes, intentions! Thunderation, hain't a chap 'sposed to have intentions when he hangs round a gal who has money like my Ann 'Liza! I tell you what, Thomas,' and his manner became very insinuating and frank, 'as nigh as I can kalkerlate I'm worth three millions, fair and square, and there's three on 'em to divide it amongst—May Jane, Bill, and Ann 'Liza. Now, s'posin' we say three into three million, don't it leave a million?'

Tom acknowledged that it did, and Peterkin continued:

'Jess so. Now I ain't one of them mean skunks that wants his folks to wait till he's dead afore they enjoys themselves; and the day my Ann 'Liza is married, I plank down a million in hard cash for her and her husband to do what they darned please with; cut a dash in Europe as Hal is doin', if they like, or cut a splurge to hum, it's all one to me. I call that square, don't you?'

Tom admitted that he did, and Peterkin went on:

'Now, then, I ain't goin't to have Ann 'Liza's affections trifled with, and if I catch a feller a doin' on't, d'ye know what I'll do?'

Tom could not guess, and Peterkin continued:

'I'll lick him within an inch of his life, and then set the dogs on him, and heave him inter the river! See?'

It was not a warm day, but Tom was perspiring at every pore as he saw presented to him the choice between a million or to be 'licked within an inch of his life and then dogged into the river.' Naturally he chose the first as the lesser evil of the two, and began to lie as he had never lied in his life before. He was very glad, he said, that Peterkin had broached the subject, as it made matters easier for him by showing him that his suit might not be rejected, as he had feared it might be.

'You know, of course, Mr. Peterkin,' he said, 'that I am a poor young man, with no expectations whatever, for though Uncle Arthur has settled something upon father, I cannot depend upon that, and how could I dare to look as high as your daughter without some encouragement?'

'Encouragement, boy? Great Scott!' and releasing Tom's arm, Peterkin hit him a friendly slap, which nearly knocked him down. 'Great Scott! What do you call encouragement? When a gal is so flustified at seeing you, and so tickled that she tetters right up and down, while her mother hunts heaven and earth for tit-bits to tickle your palate with—quail on toast, mushrooms, sweet-breads, and the Lord knows what—ain't that a sign they are willin'? Thunder and guns! what would you have? Ann 'Liza can't up and say "Marry me, Tom;" nor I can't up and say, "Thomas, marry my daughter," can I? But if you want to marry her, say so like a man, and I swan I'll meet you like a man, and a father!'

Alas for Tom! he had nothing left him to do except to say that he wished to marry Ann Eliza, and that he would come the next evening and tell her so.

It was Peterkin who answered his ring when he presented himself at the door of Le Bateau, Peterkin more inflated and pompous than ever as he shook the young man's hand, calling him Thomas—a name which aggravated him beyond all description—and telling him to go right into the parlor, where he would find Ann 'Liza waitin' for him, and where they could bill and coo as much as they liked, for he and May Jane would keep out of the way and give 'em a chance.

Even then Tom cast one despairing glance toward the door, with a half resolve to bolt; but Peterkin was behind him, pushing him on to his fate, which, after all, was not so very bad when he came to face it. There was nothing low, or mean, or coarse about Ann Eliza, who, but for her very bright red hair, would have been called pretty by some, and who was by no means ill-looking, even with her red hair, as she stood up to receive her lover, with a droop in her eyes, and a flush on her cheeks; for she knew the object of his visit, into which he plunged at once. He did not say that he loved her, but he asked her in a straightforward way to be his wife, and then waited for her answer, which was not long in coming, for Ann Eliza was no dissembler. She loved Tom Tracy with her whole soul, and felt herself honored in being sought by him.

'Oh, Tom!' she said, while the tears shone in her eyes, which Tom noticed for the first time were large and clear and very blue. 'It does not seem possible for you to love me, but, if you really do, I will be your wife and try to make you happy, and—and—'

She hesitated a moment and then went on:

'Save you as much as possible from father. We cannot live here; you and he would not get on; he means well and is the kindest of fathers to me, but he is not like you, and we must go away.'

She was really a very sensible girl, Tom thought, and in his joy at finding her so sensible he stooped and kissed her forehead as the proper thing for him to do, while she, the poor little mistaken girl, threw herself into his arms and began to cry, she was so glad and happy.

Tom did not know exactly what he ought to do. It was a novel situation for him to be in, with a girl sobbing on his bosom, and his first impulse was to push her off; but when he remembered that she represented a million of dollars, he did what half the men in the world would have done in his place: he held her close and tried to quiet her, and told her he was not half good enough for her, and knew in his heart he was telling the truth, and felt within him that stirring of a resolve that she should never know he did not love her, and that he would make her happy, if he could.

And so they were betrothed without much billing and cooing, and Peterkin came in with Mary Jane and made a speech half-an-hour long to his future son-in-law, and settled just when they were to be married and what they were to do.

Christmas week was the time, and he vowed he'd give 'em a wedding which should take the starch entirely out of Gusty Browne, whose mother, Mrs. Rossiter Browne, would think Gusty was never married at all when she saw what he could do. Greatly he lamented that Harold and Jerry could not be present. 'But they'll see it in the papers,' he said, 'for I'll have a four column notice, if I write it myself, and pay for it too! And when you meet 'em in Europe you can tell 'em what they missed.'

To all this Tom listened, with great drops of cold sweat running down his back as he thought of the ridicule he should incur if Peterkin should carry out his intentions to 'take the rag off the bush,' as he expressed it. The trip to Europe pleased him, but the party filled him with a horror from which he saw no escape, until he consulted his mother, to whom he at once announced his engagement, but did not tell her of the check on a Springfield bank for $2,000 which Peterkin had slipped into his hand at parting with him, saying, when he protested against taking it:

'Don't be a fool, Thomas. I'm to be your dad, so take it; you'll need it. I know your circumstances; they ain't what they was, and I don't s'pose you've got enough to buy the engagement ring, I want a big one. A solitary—no cluster for me. I know what 'tis to be poor. Take it, Thomas.'

So Tom took it with a sense of shame which prompted him several times to tear it in shreds and throw them to the winds. But this he did not do, for he knew he should need money, as he had none of his own; and when, a few days before, he had asked Colvin for some, that worthy man, who had never taken kindly to him, had bidden him go to a very warm place for money, as he had no orders to give him any.

'Your uncle,' he said, 'settled one hundred thousand dollars on your father—the more fool he—and expects him to live on it. So my advice to you is that you go to work.'

Now, Tom couldn't work, and after a little Peterkin's gift did not seem so very humiliating to him, although he could not bring himself to tell his mother of it when he announced his engagement to her, which he did bluntly and with nothing apologetic in his manner or speech.

'I am going to marry Ann Eliza Peterkin some time during the holidays, and start at once for Europe,' he said, and then brought some water and dashed it in her face, for she immediately went into hysterics and declared herself dying.

When she grew calm, Tom swore a little, and talked a good deal, and told her about the million, which he said was not to be sneezed at, and told her what Colvin had said to him, and asked what the old Harry he was to do if he didn't marry Ann Eliza, and told her of the proposed party, asking her to save him from it if she could.

When she found she could not help herself, Dolly rose to the situation, and said she would see her daughter-in-law elect, whom Tom was to bring to her, as she could not think of calling at Le Bateau in her present state of affliction. So Ann Eliza came over in the coat-of-arms carriage, and her mother came with her. But her Dolly declined to see. She could not endure everything, she said to Tom, and was only equal to Ann Eliza, whom she met with a bow and the tips of her fingers, without rising from her chair. Still, as the representative of a million, Ann Eliza was entitled to some consideration, and Dolly motioned her to a seat beside her, and, with her black-bordered handkerchief to her eyes, said to her:

'Tom tells me you are going to marry him, and I trust you will try to make him happy. He is a most estimable young man now, and if he should develop any bad habits, I shall think it owing to some new and bad influence brought to bear upon him.'

'Yes'm,' Ann Eliza answered, timidly; and the great lady went on to talk of family, and blood, and position, as something for which money could not make amends, and to impress upon her a sense of the great honor it was to be a member of the Tracy family.

Then she spoke of the wedding party, which she trusted Ann Eliza would prevent, as nothing could be in worse taste when they were in such affliction, adding that neither herself nor Mr. Tracy could think of being present.

'Be married quietly, without any display, if you wish to please me,' she said; and with a wave of her cobweb handkerchief she signified that the conference was ended.

'Well, Annie, how did you and my lady hit it?' Tom asked, meeting Ann Eliza in the hall as she came out, flushed and hot from the interview.

'We didn't hit it at all,' Ann Eliza replied, with a sound of tears in her voice, and a gleam in her eye which Tom had never seen before. 'She just talked as if I were dirt, and that you were only marrying me for money. She don't like me and I don't like her, there!' and the indignant little girl began to cry.

Tom laughed immoderately, and, passing his arm around her as they went down the stairs, he said:

'Of course you don't like her. Who ever did like her mother-in-law? But you are marrying me, not my mother, so don't cry, petite.'

Tom was making an effort to be very kind, and even lover-like to his fiancee, who was easily comforted, and who, on her return to Le Bateau told her father plainly that the party must be given up, as it would be sadly out of place and deeply offend the Tracys. Very unwillingly Peterkin gave it up, and sent word to that effect to Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, who had already been apprised of the coming event and was having a wonderful gown made for the occasion.

'I find,' he wrote, 'that it wouldn't be at all rachelshay to have a blow out whilst the family is in deep black; but when they git into lavender, and the young folks is home from their tower, I'll have a tearer.'

Peterkin tried two or three times to see Mrs. Tracy, but she put him off with one excuse after another, until Tom took the matter in hand and told her she was acting like a fool and putting on quite too many airs. Then she appointed an interview, and, bracing herself with a tonic, went down to the darkened, cheerless room, and by her manner so managed to impress him with her superiority over him and his that he forgot entirely the speech he had prepared with infinite pains, and which had in it a good deal about family bonds, and family units, and Aaron's beard, and brotherly love. This he had rehearsed many times to May Jane, with wonderful gestures and flourishes; 'but, I'll be bumped' he said to her on his return from the Park House, 'if I didn't forget every blessed word, she was so high and mighty. Lord! as if I didn't know what she sprung from; but that's the way with them as was born to nothin'. May Jane, if I ever catch you puttin' on airs 'cause you're a Peterkin, I b'lieve I'll kill you!'

After this, anything like familiar intercourse ceased between the heads of the two families until the morning after Christmas day, when Frank and Dolly drove over to Le Bateau, where were assembled the same people who had been present at Jerrie's wedding, and where Peterkin insisted upon darkening the rooms and lighting the gas, as something a little out of the usual order of things in Shannondale. Peterkin was very happy, and very proud of this alliance with the Tracy, and his pride and happiness shone in his face all through the ceremony; and when the clergyman asked, 'Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?' his manner was something grand to see as he stepped forward and responded, 'I do, sir,' in a voice so loud and full of importance that Dolly involuntarily groaned, while Tom found it hard to refrain from laughing.

Tom behaved very well, and kissed his bride before any one else had a chance to do so, and called May Jane mother and Peterkin father, after he saw the papers which made Ann Eliza own in her own right a million dollars; and when, an hour later, she handed over to him as his own, a deed of property valued at one hundred thousand dollars, he took her in his arms and kissed her again, telling her what was very true, that she was worth her weight in gold. Tom had felt his poverty keenly, and all the more so that Ann Eliza's engagement-ring, a superb solitaire, had actually been bought with her father's gift, as had their passage tickets to Europe. But now he was a rich man, made so by his wife's thoughtful generosity, and he was conscious of a new set of feelings and emotions with regard to her, and inwardly vowed that, so far as in him lay, he would make her happy.

They took the train for New York that afternoon, accompanied by Peterkin, who, when the ship sailed away next day, stood upon the wharf waving his hands and calling out as long as they could hear him, 'God bless you, my children! God bless you, my children!' Then he went back to Shannondale and called at Tracy Park, and reported to Frank, the only one he saw, that the youngsters had gone, and that Mrs. Thomas Tracy looked as well as the best on 'em in the ship, and a darned sight better than some!

After this the great houses of Le Bateau and Tracy Park settled down into perfect quiet, especially that of Tracy Park, where Dolly shut herself up in her mourning and crape, and Frank spent most of his time in Maude's room, with her photograph in his hand, and his thoughts busy with memories of the dear little girl lying in her grave of flowers under the winter snow.



CHAPTER LIII.

AFTER TWO YEARS.

Two years since Harold and Jerrie went away, and it was October again, and the doors and windows of the Park House were all open to the warm sunshine which filled the rooms, where the servants were flitting in and out with an air of importance and pleased expectancy, for that afternoon the master was coming home, with Harold and Jerrie; and what was more wonderful and exciting still, there was in the party a little boy, born in Wiesbaden six months before, and christened Frank Tracy. They had gone directly to Germany—Arthur, Harold, and Jerrie—for the former would not stop a day until Wiesbaden was reached; and there, overcome with fatigue and the recollections of the past which crowded upon him so fast, Arthur fell sick and was confined to his room in the hotel for a week, during which time Jerrie explored the city with Harold and a guide, finding every spot connected with Gretchen and her life, even to the shop were Frau Heinrich had sold her small wares.

As soon as her father was able, she took him to them one by one. Hand in hand, for he seemed weak as a little child, they went to the bench under the trees where he had first seen Gretchen knitting in the sunshine, with the halo on her hair, and here Arthur took off his hat as if on consecrated ground, and whispered, 'May God forgive me!' then to the little shop once kept by Frau Heinrich, where Arthur astonished the woman by buying out half her stock, which he ordered sent to his hotel, and afterward gave away; then to the English church, where he knelt before the altar and seemed to be praying, though the words he said were spoken more to Gretchen than to God; then to the house where he had lived with his bride, when heaven came down so close that she could touch it, or rather, to the site of the house, for fire had done its work there and they could only stand before the ruins, while Arthur said again and again, 'May God forgive me!' then to the house where Jerrie had lived and Gretchen had died, and where the picture still hung upon the wall, a wonder and delight to all who had rented the place since Marian's parents parents lived there. Jerrie recognized it in a moment, and so did Arthur, but he could only wring his hands before it and sob, 'Oh, Gretchen, my darling, my darling!' Changed as the house was, Jerrie found the room she remembered so well, where she had played and her mother had died.

'The big stove stood here,' she said, indicating the spot, 'and mother sat there writing to you, when Nannine opened the door and let the firelight shine upon the paper. I can see it all so distinctly, and over there in the corner was the bed where she died.'

Then Arthur knelt down upon the spot, and as if the oft-repeated ejaculation, 'May God forgive me!' were wholly inadequate now, he said the Lord's Prayer, with folded hands and streaming eyes, while Jerrie stood over him, with her arm around his neck.

'Oh, Gretchen,' he cried; 'do you know I am here after so many years?—Arthur, your husband, who loved you through all? Come back to me, Gretchen, and I'll be so tender and true—tender and true! My heart is breaking, Gretchen, and only for Cherry, our dear little girl baby, I should wish I were dead, like you. Oh, Gretchen! Gretchen! sweetest wife a man ever called his! and yet I forgot you, darling—forgot that you had ever lived! May heaven forgive me for I could not help it; I forgot everything. Where are you, Cherry? It's getting so dark and cold, and Gretchen is not here—I think you must take me home.

Jerrie took him back to the hotel, where he kept his room for three days, and then they went to Gretchen's grave beside her mother, which Jerrie had found after some little search and enquiry. Here Arthur stood like a statue, holding fast to Jerrie, and gazing down upon the neglected grave, on which clumps of withered grass were growing and blowing in the November wind.

'Gretchen is not here in this place,' he said mournfully, with a shake of his head. 'She couldn't rest there a moment, for she liked everything beautiful and bright, and this is like the Potter's field. But we'll put up a monument for her, and make the place attractive; and by and by, when she is tired of wandering about, she may come back and rest when she sees what we have done, and knows that we have been here. We will buy that house too, he said, as he walked away from the lonely grave; and the next day Harold found the owner of the place and commenced negotiations for the house, which soon changed hands and became the property of Arthur.

Just what he meant to do with it he did not know, until Jerrie suggested that he should make it an asylum for homeless children, who should receive the kindest and tenderest care from competent and trustworthy nurses, hired for the purpose.

'Yes, I'll do it,' Arthur said, 'and will call it "The Gretchen Home." Maybe she will come there some time, and know what I have done.'

This idea once in his mind, Arthur never let go of it until the house was fitted up with school-rooms and dormitories, with the little white beds and chairs suggestive of the little ones rescued from want and misery and placed in the Gretchen home until it would hold no more. The general supervision of this home was placed in the hands of the English rector, the Rev. James Dennis, whose many acts of kindness and humanity among the poor had won for him the sobriquet of St. James, and with whom the interests of the children were safe as with a loving father.

'There is money enough—money enough,' said Arthur, when giving his instructions to the matron, a good-natured woman, who, he knew, would never abuse a child. 'Money enough; to give them something besides bread and water for breakfast, and mush and molasses for supper. Children like cookies and custard pie, and if there comes a circus to town let them go once in a while; it won't hurt them to see a little of the world.'

Frau Hirch looked at him in some surprise, but promised compliance with his wishes; and when in the middle of December he left Wiesbaden for Italy he had the satisfaction of knowing that the inmates of the Gretchen home were enjoying a bill of fare not common in institutions of the kind.

Another odd fancy had entered his brain, upon which he acted with his usual promptness. Every child not known to have been baptized, was to be christened with a new name, either Gretchen, or Jerrie, or Maude or Arthur, or Harold, or Frank.

'Suppose you have Tom, and Ann Eliza, and Hilly,' Jerrie suggested, and after a little demur Arthur consented, and the names of Tom, and Ann Eliza, and Billy were added to the list, which, in the course of time, created some little confusion in the Gretchen home, where Jerries, and Maudes, and Harolds, and Arthurs abounded in great profusion, these being the favorites of the children, who in most instances were allowed to choose for themselves.

It was not difficult to find in Wiesbaden people who had remembered Gretchen and the grand marriage she had made with the rich American, who afterward abandoned her. That was the way they worded it, and they remembered too, the little girl, Jerrine, whom, after her mother's death, the nurse, Nannine, took to her father's friends, since which nothing had been heard from her. Thus, had there been in Arthur's mind any doubt as to Jerrie's identity, it would have been swept away; but there was none. He had accepted her from the first as his daughter, and he always looked up to her as a child to its mother whom it fears to lose sight of.

The winter was mostly spent in Rome, where Harold and Jerrie explored every part of the city, while Arthur staid in his room talking to an unseen Gretchen, who afforded him almost as much satisfaction as the real one might have done. In May they visited the lakes and in June drifted to Paris, where Jerrie was overjoyed to meet Nina and Dick, who were staying with the Raymonds at a charming chateau just outside the city. Here she and Harold passed a most enjoyable week, and before she left she was made happy by something which she saw and which told her that Dick was forgetting that night under the pines, and that some day not far in the future he would find in Marian all he had once hoped to find in her. In Paris, too, she came one day upon Ann Eliza at the Bon Marche, with silks and satins piled high around her, and two or three obsequious clerks in attendance, for La Petite Americaine, who bought so lavishly everything she saw and fancied, was well known to the tradespeople, who eagerly sought her patronage and that of my lord monsieur, who inspired them greatly with his air of importance and dignity. Tom was enjoying himself immensely, and was really a good deal improved and a good deal in love with his little wife, whom he always addressed as Petite or Madame, and who was quite a belle and a general favorite in the American colony. Following a fashion, which Tom was sure had been made for his benefit, she had cut off her obnoxious red hair and substituted in its place a wig of reddish brown, which for naturalness and beauty was a marvel of art and skill, and became her so well that Tom really thought her handsome, or at least very stylish and stunning, which was better than mere beauty. They had a suite of rooms at the Continental, and there Harold and Jerrie dined with them in their private parlor, for Tom was quite too fine a gentleman to go to table d'hote with the common herd. Ann Eliza's grand maid, Doris, was with her still, and had come to look upon her young mistress as quite as great a personage as the Lady Augusta Hardy, whom she had ceased to quote, and who, with her mother, Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, was now in the city, attended, it was said, by a Polish count, who had an eye upon her money. Once, when they were alone, Jerrie asked Tom when he was going home, and, with a comical twinkle in his eye, he replied, 'When I hear that my respected father-in-law has gone off with apoplexy, and not before.' Jerrie thought this a shocking speech, but she was glad to see him so happy, and, as she told Harold, 'so much more of a man than she had ever supposed he could be.'

That summer Harold and Jerrie spent in Switzerland, with the Raymonds and St. Claires and Tracys, while Arthur went to Wiesbaden to see to the Gretchen Home, which he found so much to his taste that he remained there until Harold and Jerrie, after a trip through Austria and Germany, joined him in November, when they went again for the winter to Italy, coming back in the spring to Wiesbaden, and because Arthur would have it so, taking up their abode for a while in the Gretchen Home, which had been greatly enlarged and improved, and now held thirty deserted and homeless children. Here, in April, Jerrie's little boy was born, in the same room and corner where Gretchen had died, and where Arthur again went down upon his knees and said the Lord's Prayer, to which he added a fervent thanksgiving for Jerrie spared and a baby given to him.

'I hoped it would be a girl,' he said, 'for then we should have called it Gretchen; but as it is a boy, suppose we name it Heinrich?'

'No, father,' Jerrie said decidedly, 'Baby is not to be Heinrich, or Arthur, or Harold, although I think the last the dearest name in the world,' and she put up her hand caressingly to the brown beard of the tall young man bending over to kiss her pale face and look at his son. 'We will call the baby Frank Tracy.'

And so Frank Tracy was the name given to the child, who was more like its father than its mother, and whom Arthur called Tracy, which he liked better, he said, than he did Frank.

They remained in Wiesbaden until June, then went to Switzerland and Paris, and in October sailed for home, where the Park House was ready for them, with no mistress to dispute Jerrie's rights and no master except the lawful one. Just out of town on a grassy ridge overlooking the river, a gentleman from New York had built a pretty little cottage, which, as his wife died suddenly, he never occupied, but offered for sale, with all its furniture and appointments.

'Let's buy it,' Dolly said to her husband. 'We must go somewhere before Arthur comes home, and we can live there very respectably and economically, too.'

She was beginning to count the cost of everything now, and was almost penurious in her efforts to make their income go as far as possible. So they bought the pretty place, which she called Ridge Cottage, but Frank did not live to occupy it. After Tom went away and left him alone with his wife, who was not the most agreeable of companions, he failed rapidly, both in body and mind, and those who saw him walking about the house, with his white hair and bent form, would have said he was seventy rather than fifty years old. Every day, when the weather permitted, he visited Maude's grave, where he sometime stayed for hours looking down upon the mound talking to the insensible clay beneath.

'I am coming soon, Maude, very soon, to be here beside you,' he would say. 'Everybody has gone, even to Tom, and your mother is sometimes hard upon me because of what I did. And I am tired, and cold, and old, and the world is dark and dreary, and I am coming very soon.'

Then he would walk slowly back, taking the post office on his way, to inquire for letters from the folks, as he designated the absent ones. These letters were a great comfort to him, especially those from Jerrie, who wrote him very often and told him all they were doing and seeing, and tried to make him understand how much she loved and sympathised with him. Not a hint had been given him of the baby; and when, in June, he received a letter from her containing a photograph of the little boy named for him, he seemed childish in his joy, and started with the picture at once for Maude's grave. Kneeling down, with his face in the long grass, he whispered:

'Look, Maude!—Jerrie's baby boy, named for me—Frank Tracy! Do you hear me, Maude? Frank Tracy, for me—who wronged her so. God bless Jerrie, and give her many years of happiness when I am dead and gone, which will not now be long. I am coming very soon, Maude; sooner than you think, and shall never see Jerrie's little boy, God bless him!'

That night Frank seemed brighter than usual, and talked a great deal with his wife, who, to the last day of her life, was glad that she was kind to him and humored all his fancies; and once, when he lay upon the couch, with the baby's picture in his hand, she went and sat by him and ran her fingers caressingly through his white hair, and asked if he were not better.

'Yes, Dolly,' he said, taking her fingers in his hand and holding them fast. 'A great deal better. Jerrie's baby has done me good, and you, too, Dolly. You don't knew how nice it seems to have you smooth my hair; it is like the old days at Langley, when we sang in the choir together, and you were fond of me.'

'I am fond of you now, Frank,' Dolly replied, as she stooped to kiss the face in which there was a look she had never seen before, and which haunted her long after he had said good-night and gone to Maude's room, where he said he would sleep, as he was likely to be restless and might keep her awake.

The next morning Dolly took her breakfast alone, for Frank did not join her.

'Let him sleep,' she said to the servant, who suggested calling him; but when some time later, he did not appear, she went herself to Maude's room, into which the noonday sun was shining, for every blind and window was open and the light was so dazzling that for a moment she did not see the still figure stretched upon the bed, where with Maude's picture in one hand and Jerrie's baby's in the other, her husband lay, calmly sleeping the sleep which knows no waking.

On his face there was a look of rapturous joy, and on his lips a smile as if they were framing the loved name of Maude when death came and sealed them forever. Around him was no sign of struggle or pain, for the covering was not disturbed; and the physician when he came said he must have died quietly and possibly instantly without a note of warning. They buried him beside his daughter and then Dolly was alone in the great house, which became so intolerable to her that she left it early in August and took possession of the cottage on the Ridge, which, though scarcely less lovely, was not as large as the Park House and did not seem haunted with the ghosts of the dead.

And so it happened that Mrs. Crawford alone stood in the door-way to welcome the travellers when, late in the bright October afternoon they came, tired and dusty, but oh, so glad to be home once more and to feel that now it really was home to all intents and purposes.

'I never was so glad in my life, and if Uncle Frank were here I should be perfectly happy,' Jerrie cried, as she threw herself upon Mrs. Crawford's neck, hugging and kissing her awhile, and then taking her baby from the nurse she put it into the old lady's arms, saying as she did so:

'Another grandson for you—Harold's baby. Isn't he a beauty?'

And little Tracy was a most beautiful child, with his father's features and complexion, but Jerrie's expression and ways, and Mrs. Crawford felt, as she folded him to her bosom and cried over him, that he would be the crowning joy of her old age. At first Harold puzzled and perplexed her, he was so changed from the Harold who had shingled roofs and painted barns and worked in Peterkin's furnace. Foreign travel and prosperity set well upon him, and one could scarcely have found a more refined or polished young man than Harold as he moved about the premises, every inch a gentleman and every inch the master, with a bright smile and pleasant word for everyone, whether of high or low degree. He had known what poverty meant, with slights on account of it, and had risen above it all, and remembering the days when he worked in the Tracy fields and envied his companions their leisure and freedom from toil, he had resolved that, if possible, some portion of mankind should be happier because of him. He knew he was very fine-looking, for his tailor told him so, and his mirror told him so, and Jerrie told him so twenty times a day as she kissed his handsome face, and his grandmother frequently took off her spectacles to wipe away her glad tears as she looked at her boy and felt so proud of him.

All Shannondale hastened to call upon the travellers, and no one was louder or more demonstrative in his welcome than Peterkin, who called himself their kin, and was very proud of the connection and of his son Thomas, for whom he made many inquiries. It did not take long for the family to settle down into every-day quiet, Jerrie proving herself a competent and thorough housekeeper, while Harold was to all intents and purposes the head to whom everyone deferred and went for directions. Arthur, who had half died from seasickness, had at once taken to his rooms and his old mode of life, telling Harold and Jerrie to do what they liked and not bother him. One change, however, he made; he put Harold into the office in the place of Colvin, who had done his business for so many years, and who was glad to give it up, while Harold was glad to take it, as it gave him something to do and did not greatly interfere with his law studies, which he immediately resumed, applying himself so closely that he was admitted to practice within the year, and in time became one of the ablest lawyers in the State.

And now there remains but little to do except to gather up the few tangled threads of our story and bring it to a close. For another year the Raymonds and St. Claires remained abroad, and then, just before they sailed for home, there was a double wedding one morning in London, when Fred and Dick were the bridegrooms, and Marian and Nina were the brides. Dick had not forgotten the night under the pines, but he had ceased to remember it with pain; and when he asked Marian to be his wife he told her of it, and of his old love for Jerrie, while she in turn told him of a grave among the Alps by which she had stood with an aching heart, while strangers buried from her sight forever a young artist from Boston, who, had he lived, would have made it impossible for her to be the wife of Dick St. Claire. But Allan was dead, and Jerrie was a wife and mother, and so across the graves of a living and a dead love the two grasped hands, and, forgetting the past as far as possible, were content with the new happiness offered to them.

* * * * *

It is five years now since Harold and Jerrie came home, and toddling about the house is a little girl two years old, whom they call Gretchen, and who has all the soft beauty of the Gretchen in the picture, together with Jerrie's stronger and more marked features. This little girl is Arthur's idol, and has succeeded in luring him from his den, in which, until she came, he was staying closer than ever. Now, however, he is with her constantly, either in the house or in the grounds, or sitting under a tree holding her in his lap, while he talks his strange talk to the other Gretchen, and the child listens wonderingly, with her great blue eyes fixed upon him.

'This is our grandchild,' he will say, nodding to the space beside him, while little Gretchen nods too, as if she also saw a figure sitting there. 'Our grandchild and Jerrie's baby, and you are its grandmother. Grandma Gretchen! That's funny;' and then he laughs, and baby laughs, and says after him, lispingly, 'Danma Detchen, that's funny.'

Then Tracy comes up with his whip and his cart, and his straw hat hanging down his back, and Arthur points him out to the spirit Gretchen as her grandson, who, he says, is all Hastings, with a very little Tracy and not a grain of German in him, 'but very nice, very nice; and you are his grandmother, too, and I am his grandfather, whom he once called an old crazy man because I wouldn't let him play in my room with a little alligator which his Aunt Dolly sent him from Florida.'

'Well, you be crazy, ain't you?' the boy says, seating himself upon the bench and nestling his brown head against the arm of the man, who replies:

'I don't know whether I am or not, but if to be very happy in the companionship of the living and of the dead, and to have one as real as the other is craziness, then I am crazy.'

And then, for the hundredth time, he tells to the boy, and to the baby, too, who seems to understand the story of the carpet-bag and the little girl, their mother, whom the boy, their father, found in the Tramp House one wintry morning years ago, and carried through the snow. And Tracy starts to his feet with dilating eyes, and says:

'I just wish I'd been there. I'd carried mamma, and wouldn't let her drop in the snow as papa did. Where was I then, grandpa?'

But grandpa does not answer, and begins the story of the cherries and the ladder, which Tracy likes even better than that of the carpet bag, particularly the part where the white sun-bonnet appears in the window, and the shrill voice calls out: 'Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?'

This Arthur makes very dramatic and real, and Tracy holds his breath; and sometimes when the question is more real than usual, little Gretchen puts out her hand, and says:

'Iss, div me some.'

Then the boy and the old man laugh, and Tracy runs off after a passing butterfly, and Arthur goes on with talk to the baby and the other Gretchen beside him, until the former falls asleep, and he takes her to the crib he has had put in the bay window under the picture which smiles down upon the sleeping infant, whose guardian angel it seems to be.

The Tramp House has been repaired and renovated, the table mended, and the rat hole stopped up; and the trio frequently go there together, for it is the children's play-house, where Arthur is sometimes a horse, sometimes a bear, and sometimes a whole menagerie of animals. Once or twice he has been the dead woman on the table, with little Gretchen beside him in the carpet-bag, and Tracy tugging with all his might to lift her out; but after the day when he let her fall, and gave her a big bump upon the forehead, that kind of play ceased, and the boy was compelled to try some other make believe than that of the tragedy on the wintry night many years before.

Billy Peterkin has never married, and never will. His heart-wound was too deep to heal without a scar to tell where it had been; but he and Jerrie are the best of friends, and he is very fond of her children.

Tom is still abroad, waiting for that fit of apoplexy which is to be the signal for his return; but the probabilities are that he will wait a long time, for Peterkin, who is himself afraid of apoplexy, has gone through the Banting process, which has reduced his weight from fifty to seventy-five pounds, and as he is very careful in his diet Tom may stay abroad longer than he cares to do, unless Ann Eliza's persuasions bring him home to his dreaded father-in-law. There was a little girl born to them in Rome, whom they called Maude, but she only lived a few weeks, and then they buried her under the daisies in the Protestant burying ground, where so many English and Americans are lying. Ann Eliza sent a lock of the little one's hair to her father, who had it framed and hung in his bedroom, and wore on his hat a band of crape which nearly covered it.

Dolly still calls the Ridge Cottage her home, but she is not often there, for a mania for travelling has seized her, and she is always upon the move, searching for some new place, where she hopes to find rest and quiet. She still dresses in black, relieved at times with something white, but she has laid aside crape and sports her diamonds, which she did not find it necessary to sell, and which attract a great deal of attention, they are so clear and large. One year she spent in Europe with Tom and Ann Eliza, the latter of whom she made so uncomfortable with her constant dictation and assumption of superiority that Tom at last came to the rescue, and told her either to mind her business and let his wife alone or go home. As she could not do the former she came home, and joined a Raymond party to California, but soon separated herself from it, as the members were not to her taste. Every summer she goes either to Saratoga or the sea-side or the mountains, and every winter she drifts southward to Florida, where, at certain hotels, she is as well known as the oldest habituee. We saw her recently at Winter Park, where, at the Seminole, she has a maid and a suit of rooms, and as far as possible keeps herself aloof from the common herd, consorting only with the noted ones of the place, those she knows who have money and position at home. Poor foolish Dolly, who has forgotten Langley and its humble surroundings. There are many like her in real life, but only one in our story, to which we now write

THE END.