'Nothing,' was the consoling reply; and as the sleigh just then drew up before his door, Frank alighted from it, and said to himself as he ran up the steps:

'I believe I have been riding with the devil, and have made a league with him!'

He found the house thoroughly aired and cleansed from all signs of the recent funeral; and when, at one o'clock, he sat down to lunch in the handsome dining-room, and sipped his favorite claret, and ate his foreign preserves, and thought how much comfort and luxury money could buy, he was sure he had done well for himself and his children after him. But, like Bishop Hatto, of Mouse-Tower memory, Frank Tracy never knew real peace of mind from the day he deliberately sold himself to the Evil One for filthy lucre, until the day, years after, when full restitution was made, and, with the sin confessed, he held his head up again, free from the shadow which he did not leave in the sleigh, but which followed him day and night, walking by him when he walked, sitting by him when he sat, and watching by him when he slept, so as to be ready when he woke with the specious argument that he was acting justly and even generously by the little waif, who was like a sunbeam in the cottage in the lane, whom many people went to see, marvelling at her beauty and wondering in vain whose likeness they sometimes saw in her as she frolicked around the house, full of life, and fun, and laughter.

Frank made his will, as he promised his shadow he would, but he went to Springfield to have it drawn up, for he knew that Colvin, or any lawyer whom he might employ in Shannondale, would wonder at it. He also wrote out himself what he called his dying request to his children, in case he should die before his brother. In this he stated emphatically his wish that Jerry should have her share of whatever might come to them from the Tracy estate, the same as if she were his own child.

'I have a good and sufficient reason for this,' he wrote in conclusion, 'and I enjoin it upon you to carry out my wishes as readily as you would were I to speak to you from my grave,'

This done, Frank felt a little better, and the shadow at his side was not quite as real as it had been before. He put his will and his dying request together in a private drawer with Gretchen's photograph, and the testament with the handwriting in it. He had kept this back when the stranger's trunk was sent to the cottage, thinking that if it were missed and inquired for, he could easily produce it as having been mislaid. At the suggestion of Mr. St. Claire he went to New York, to the office of the German line of steamers, and made inquiries with regard to the passengers who had come on a certain ship at such a time. But nothing could be learned of any woman with a child, and after inserting in several of the New York papers a description of the woman, with a request for any information concerning her which could be given, he returned home, with a feeling that he had done all that could be required of him, and that he might now enjoy himself.

He was accordingly kind and even tender to his brother, who for several weeks suffered from low nervous depression, which kept him altogether in his room, to which he refused to admit any one except his attendant and Frank. He had ceased for the time being, to talk of Gretchen, or to expect her, and he never inquired for the child, whose blue hood had so affected him. Once Frank spoke of her to him and told him where she was, and that she was learning to speak English very rapidly, and growing prettier every day. But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only said:

'How can Mrs. Crawford afford to keep the child?'

Others than Arthur asked that question, and among them Dolly, who with a woman's quick wit, sharpened by something she accidentally saw, divined the truth, which she wrung at last from her husband. There was a fierce quarrel—almost their first—a sick headache which lasted three days, and a month or more of coldness between the married pair, and then, finding she could accomplish nothing, for Frank was as firm as a rock, Dolly gave up the contest, and tried by economizing in various ways, to save the money which she felt was taken from her children by the little girl, who had become so dear to Mrs. Crawford, that she would not have parted with her had nothing been paid for her keeping.



CHAPTER XVII.

"MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?"

More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her history was still shrouded in mystery. Not a word had been heard concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was buried.

As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she seemed much older, for there was about her a precocity only found in children who have always associated with people much older than themselves, or into whose lives strange experiences have come. In stature she was very short, though round and plump as a partridge. 'Dutchy,' Mr. Tracy called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and took no pains to conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing except the money which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for the child's maintenance.

There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better, judging from appearances, unless, indeed—and then she told what old Peterkin had said more than once, to the effect that Jerry Crawford, as she was called, was growing to be the image of the Tracys, especially Arthur.

'And if so,' she added, 'you'd better let Arthur take care of her, and save your money for your own children,'

To this Frank never replied. He knew better than old Peterkin that Jerry was like the Tracys, or, rather, like his brother, and that it was not so much in the features as in the expression and certain movements of the head and hands, and tones of the voice when she was very much in earnest, and raised it to a higher pitch than usual. She could speak English very well now, and sometimes, when Frank, who was a frequent visitor at the cottage, sat watching her at her play, and listening to her as she talked to herself, as was her constant habit, he could have shut his eyes and sworn it was his brother's voice calling to him from the hay-loft or apple tree where they had played together when boys.

Jerry's favorite amusement when alone was to make believe that either herself, or a figure she had made out of a shawl, was a sick woman, lying on a settee which she converted into a bed. Sometimes she was the nurse and took care of the sick woman to whom she always spoke in German, bending fondly over her, and occasionally holding up before her a doll which Mrs. St. Claire had given her, and which she played was the woman's baby. Then she would be the sick woman herself, and trying on the broad frilled cap which had been found in the trunk, would slip under the covering, and laying her head upon the pillow, go through with all the actions of some one very sick, occasionally hugging to her bosom and kissing the doll.

Once she enacted the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together and closing her eyes, her lips moved as if in prayer, for a moment, then stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set expression in the little face which looked so comical under the broad frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which she knelt, and covering her face with her hands imitated perfectly the sobs and moans of a middle-aged person, mingled occasionally with the clearer, softer notes of a child's crying.

The first time Frank witnessed this piece of acting was on a Saturday afternoon, when he had come to the cottage as usual to pay his weekly due. Both Mrs. Crawford and Harold were gone, but knowing they would soon return, as it was not their habit to leave Jerry long alone he sat down to wait, while she went back to the corner in the kitchen, which she used as her play-house.

'Somebody is sick and I am taking care of her,' she said to Mr. Tracy, who watched her through the pantomime of the death scene with a feeling, when it was over, that he had seen Gretchen die.

There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that the sick woman was Gretchen, the nurse the stranger found in the Tramp House, and the doll baby the little girl upon whose memory that scene had been indelibly stamped, and who, with her wonderful powers of imitation, could rehearse it in every particular. To herself she always spoke in German, which no one could understand sufficiently to make out what she meant. Once Mr. St. Claire suggested to Frank that he take her to his brother, to whom German was as natural as English, and who might be able to learn something of her antecedents. And Frank had answered that he would do so, knowing the while that nothing could tempt him to bring her and his brother together until all the recollections of her babyhood, if she had any, were obliterated, and she had in part forgotten her own language.

His first step in evil doing had to be followed by others until he was so far committed that he could not retrace his steps, and two shadows were with him constantly now, one always reproaching him for what he had done, and the other telling him it was now too late to turn back.

He was very fond of Jerry, and on the Saturday afternoon when he sat watching her strange play, noticing how graceful was every movement, and how lovely the constantly varying expression of her face—from concern and anxiety when she was the nurse to distress and pain and then resignation and quietude in death when she took the role of the sick woman—he felt himself moved by some mighty influence to right her at once and put her in her proper place.

'It is more than I can bear. I can't even look Dolly straight in the eye,' he said to his evil shadow, which answered back.

'You know nothing sure. Will you give up your prospects for a photograph and a likeness which may be accidental?'

So his conscience was smothered again; but he would question the child, and after her play was over he called her to him and taking her in his lap, kissed the little grave face upon which the shadow of the scene she had been enacting had left its impress.

'Jerry,' he said, 'that lady who just died in the bed with the cap on was your mamma, was it not?'

''Ess,' was Jerry's reply, for she still adhered to her first pronunciation of the word.

'And the other was the nurse?'

''Ess,' Jerry said again; 'Mah-nee.'

This was puzzling, for he had always supposed that by 'mah-nee' the child meant 'mam-ma;' but he went on:

'Try to understand me, Jerry; try to think away back before you came in the ship.'

''Ess, I vill,' she said, with a very wise look on her face, while Mr. Tracy continued:

'Had you a papa? Was he there with you?'

'Nein,' was the prompt reply, and Mr. Tracy continued:

'Where did your mamma live? Was it in Wiesbaden?'

He knew he did not pronounce the word right, and was surprised at the sudden lighting up of the child's eyes as she tried to repeat the name. 'Oo-oo-ee,' she began, with a tremendous effort, but the W mastered her, and she gave it up with a shake of her head.

'I not say dat oo-oo-ee,' she said, and he put the question in another form:

'Where did your mamma die?'

'Tamp House; f'oze to deff,' was now the ready answer, a natural one, too, for she had been taught by Harold that such was the case, and had often gone with him to the house where he found her, and where the old table still stood against the wall.

No one picnicked there now, for the place was said to be haunted, and the superstitious ones told each other that on stormy nights, when the wild winds were abroad, lights had been seen in the Tramp House, where a pale-faced woman, with her long, black hair streaming down her back, stood in the door-way, shrieking for help, while the cry of a child mingled with her call. But Harold shared none of these fancies. He was not afraid of the building, and often went there with Jerry, and sitting with her on the table, told her again and again how he had found her mother that wintry morning, and how funny she herself had looked in the old carpet-bag, and so it is not strange that when Mr. Tracy asked her where her mother died, she should answer, 'In the Tramp House,' although she had acted a pantomime whose reality must have taken place under very different circumstances.

'Of course your mother died in the Tramp House, and I have nothing with which to reproach myself. I am altogether too morbid on the subject,' Frank said, and he had decided that he was a pretty good sort of fellow, after all, when at last Mrs. Crawford came in and he paid her for Jerry's board.

It was a part of Frank's plan to save the money out of his own personal expenses, so he smoked two cigars less each day and went without claret for dinner, except on Sunday, and never touched champagne, and wore his hats and coats until his wife said they were shabby and insisted upon new ones. In this way he saved more than three dollars a week, but the overplus was laid aside for the time when Jerry must necessarily cost him more because she would be older. In some respects he was doing his duty by the child, who, next to Harold and Mrs. Crawford, whom she called grandma, loved him better than any one else. She always ran to meet him when he came, and sometimes, when he went away, accompanied him down the lane, holding his hand and asking him numberless questions about Tracy Park and about his little girl, and why she never came to see her.

Frank could not tell Jerry of his wife's bitter prejudice against her, and that this was the reason why Maude had never been to the cottage or Jerry to the park. But if Jerry had not visited it in person, she was greatly interested in the handsome house and grounds, and the lovely rooms where the crazy man lived. This was Harold's designation of Mr. Arthur—the crazy man—and perhaps of all the things at Tracy Park, Jerry was most desirous to see him and his rooms. Harold, who, on one of the rare occasions when Arthur was out to dine, had been sent to the house on an errand, had gone with Jack into these rooms, which he described minutely to his grandmother and Jerry, dwelling longest upon the beautiful picture in the window. 'Gretchen, he calls it,' he said; and then Jerry, who was listening intently, gave a sudden upward and sidewise turn to her Lead, just as she had done when Mr. Tracy spoke to her of Wiesbaden.

'Detchen,' she repeated, with a little hesitancy. 'Vat the name vas? Say again.'

He said it again, and over the child's face there came a puzzled expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all her efforts. But she did not forget the name, and that evening Mrs. Crawford heard her singing to herself,

'Detchen, Detchen, who are you? Detchen, Detchen, where are you?' and she noticed that the doll baby with which Jerry played the most was ever after called 'Detchen,' instead of Maude, as it had been christened when first given to her.

Jerry had seen Maude Tracy many times and had admired her greatly, with her pretty white dresses and costly embroideries; and once, at church, when Maude passed near where she was standing, she stood back as far as possible out of the way and held her plain gingham dress aside, as if neither it nor herself had any right to come in close contact with so superior a being. Of the house in the park she knew nothing, except what Harold had told her, and that it was a place to be admired and gazed at breathlessly at a respectful distance. She had never been there since the day of the funeral But she was going at last with Harold, who had permission to gather cherries for his grandmother from some of the many trees which grew upon the place.

It was a hot morning in July, and the air seemed thunderous and heavy when she set off on what to her was as important an expedition as is a trip to Europe to an older person. She had wanted to wear her pink gingham dress, the one kept sacred for Sunday, and had even hoped that she might be allowed to display her best straw hat with the blue ribbons and cluster of apple blossoms. She had no doubt that she should go into the house and see the crazy man, and Mrs. Tracy, who she had heard wore silk stockings every day, and she wished to be suitably attired for such honor.

But Mrs. Crawford dispelled her air castles by telling her that she was only to go into the side yard where the cherry trees were, and that she must be very quiet, so as not to disturb Mr. Arthur, whose windows looked that way. To wear her pink dress was impossible, as she would get it stained with the juice of the cherries, while the best hat was not for a moment to be thought of.

So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked, long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her to wear on a cherry expedition. A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide cape covered her head and concealed her face when she started from the cottage, with her quart tin pail on her arm; but no sooner was she on the path which led to the park that the obnoxious bonnet was removed and was swinging on her arm, while she was admiring the shadow which, her long, bright curls made in the sunshine as she shook her head from side to side.

To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain. Passionately fond of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in Mrs. Crawford's old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was 'awful handsome,' she had felt a pride in it and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford's asseverations that 'Handsome is that handsome does' could not destroy. Maude Tracy's hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the advantage over her.

'I do hope we shall see her,' she said to Harold, as she danced along, swaying her bonnet and shaking her hair. 'Do you think we shall?'

Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she would speak to them, he said.

'Why not?' Jerry asked, and he replied:

'Oh, I suppose they feel big because they are rich and we are poor.'

'But why ain't I rich, too? Why don't I live at the park like Maude, and wear low-necked aprons instead of this old high one?' Jerry asked; but Harold could not tell, and only said:

'Would you rather live at the park than with me?'

'No,' Jerry answered, promptly, stopping short and digging her heel into the soft loam of the path. 'I would not stay anywhere without you; and when I live at the park you will live there, too, and have codfish and tatoe every day.'

Strangely enough this was Harold's favorite dish, and, as it was not his grandmother's, his taste was not gratified in that respect as often as he would have liked, hence Jerry's promise of the luxury.

Just here, at a sudden turn in the path, they came upon Jack and Maude Tracy playing on a bench under a tree, while the nurse was at a distance either reading or asleep. Harold would have passed them at once, as he knew his grandmother was in a hurry for the cherries, but Jerry had no such intention.

Stopping short in front of Maude, she inspected her carefully, from her white dress and bright plaid sash to the string of amber beads around her neck; while, side by side with this picture, she saw herself in her dark calico frock and high-necked apron, with her sun-bonnet and tin pail on her arm. Jerry did not like the contrast, and a lump began to swell in her throat. Then, as a happy thought struck her, she said, with something like exultation in her tone:

'My hair curls and yours don't.'

'No,' Maude answered, slowly—'no it don't curl, but it's black, and yours is yaller.'

This was a set back to Jerry, who hated everything yellow, and who had never dreamed of applying that color to her hair. She only knew that Dick St. Claire had called it pretty, but in this new light thrown upon it all her pride vanished, for she recognized like a flash that it might be 'yaller,' and stood there silent and vanquished, until Maude, who in turn had been regarding her attentively, said to her:

'Ain't you Jerry Crawford?'

That broke the ice of reserve, and the two little girls were soon talking together familiarly, and Jerry was asking Maude if she wore beads and her best clothes every day.

'Phoo! These ain't my best clothes. I have one gown all brawdery and lace,' was Maude's reply, while Jack, who was standing near, chimed in:

'My father's got lots of money, and so has Uncle Arthur, and when he dies we are going to have it; Tom says so.'

Slowly the shadows gathered on Jerry's brow as she said, sadly;

'I wish I had an Uncle Arthur, and could wear beads and a sash every day' Then, as she looked at Harold, her face brightened immediately and she exclaimed.

'But I have Harold and a grandma, and you hain't,' and running up to Harold, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him lovingly, as if to make amends for the momentary repining.

'We must go now,' Harold said, and taking her hand in his, he led her away toward the house, which impressed her with so much awe that as she drew near to it, she held her breath and walked on tiptoe, as if afraid that any sound from her would be sacrilege in that aristocratic atmosphere.

'Oh, isn't it grand, Harold?' Isn't it grand!' she kept repeating, with her mouth full of cherries, after they had reached the trees on which the ripe, red fruit hung so thickly. 'Do you s'pose we shall see the crazy man?' she asked, and Harold replied:

'I don't know. I guess not, unless he comes to the window. Those are his rooms, and that window which looks so ugly outside, is the one with the picture in it,' and he pointed to the south wing, most of the windows of which were open, while against one a long ladder was standing.

It had been left there by a workman who had been up on it to fix the hinge of a blind, and who had gone to the village in quest of something he needed, Jerry saw the ladder and its close proximity to the open window, and she thought to herself.

'I mean to fill my pail with cherries, and go up that ladder and take them to him, I wonder if he would bite me?'

Suiting the action to the word she stopped eating; and began to pick from the lower limbs as rapidly as possible until her pail was full.

'Pour them into the basket,' Harold called to her from the top of the tree, but Jerry did not heed him. She had seen the tall figure of a man pass before the window, and a pale, thin face had for a moment, looked out, apparently to discover whence the talking came.

'I'm going to take the crazyman some cherries,' she tried, and almost before Harold could protest, she was half way up the ladder, which she climbed with the agility of a little cat.

'Jerry, Jerry! What are you doing!' Harold exclaimed, 'Come back this minute. He doesn't like children; he tried to throw me over the banister once; he will knock you off the ladder; oh, Jerry!' and Harold's voice was almost a sob as he watched the girl going up round after round until the top was reached, and she stood with her flushed, eager face, just on a level with the window so that by standing on tiptoe, she could look into the room.

It was Arthur's bedroom, and there was no one in it, but she heard the sound of footsteps in the adjoining apartment, and raising herself as far as possible, and holding up her pail, she called out in a clear, shrill voice;

'Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?'



CHAPTER XVIII.

ARTHUR AND JERRY.

Arthur had passed a restless night. Indeed all his nights were restless, but this one had been especially so. Thoughts of Gretchen had troubled him in his dreams, and two or three times he had started up to listen, thinking that he heard her calling to him from a distance. He had dreamed also of the blue hood seen that day of the funereal, now more than two years ago, and of the child who had come knocking at his door, first with her hands and then with her feet, but whom he had refused to admit. He had never seen her since, and had never inquired for her of his own accord. Two or three times his brother had spoken of her in a casual way, telling him once that she was with Mrs. Crawford. Arthur had then asked how she could afford to keep her, and Frank had made no reply. But the second time when he spoke of Jerry, and Arthur, more interested in Mrs. Crawford than in her, had asked the same question, Frank had said:

'She cannot afford it, I pay her three dollars a week.'

For a moment Arthur looked inquiringly at him; then he said:

'You are a good fellow after all, even if you did deceive me about sending John for Gretchen. Tell Colvin, when Christmas comes, to give Mrs. Crawford a hundred dollars for me.'

After this Mrs. Crawford and her affairs passed completely out of Arthur's mind. He never went to the cottage, or near it. He never went anywhere, in fact, but lived the life of a recluse, growing thinner, and paler, and more reticent every day, talking now but seldom of Gretchen, though he never arose in the morning or retired at night without kissing her picture and murmuring to it some words of tenderness in German.

He had measured the length of his three rooms and dressing-room, and found them to be nearly one hundred feet, or six rods do that by passing back and forth twenty-five times he would walk almost a mile.

Regularly each morning, when it was not too cold or stormy, he would throw open his windows and take his daily exercise, which was but a poor substitute for what might be had in the fresh air outside, but was nevertheless much better than nothing.

On this particular morning, when Harold and Jerry were at the park, he was taking his walk as usual, though very slowly, for he felt weak and sick, and, oh, so inexpressibly lonely and desolate that it seemed to him he would gladly lie down and die.

'If I thought Gretchen were dead, nothing would seem so desirable to me as the grave, for then there would be nothing to live for,' he was saying to himself, when the sound of voices outside attracted his attention, and going to the window, he saw the children, Harold in the top of the tree, and Jerry at the foot, with her white sun-bonnet shading her face.

Recognizing Harold, he guessed who the little girl was, and a strange feeling of interest stirred in his heart for her, as he said:

'Poor little waif! I wonder where she came from, or what will become of her?'

'Then resuming his walk, he forgot all about the little waif, until startled by a voice which rang, clear and bell-like, through the rooms:

'Mr. Crazyman! Mr. Crazyman! don't you want some cherries?'

It was not so much the words as something in the tone, the foreign accent, the ring like a voice he never could forget, and which the previous night had called to him in his dreams. And now it was calling again—not in his sleep, but in reality, for he knew he was awake—calling from the adjoining room, which no one could enter without his knowledge.

Mentally weak as he was, and apt to be superstitious, his limbs shook, and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he went toward his sleeping-apartment, from which the voice came again a little louder and more peremptory:

'Mr. Crazyman! where are you? I've brought you some cherries!'

He had reached the door by this time, and saw the pail on the broad window-ledge where Jerry had put it, and to which she was clinging, with her white sun-bonnet just in view.

'Oh, Gretchen! how did you get here?' he said, bounding across the floor, with no thought of Jerry in his mind, no thought of any one but Gretchen, whom he was constantly expecting to come, though not exactly in this way.

'I climbed the ladder to fetch you some cherries, and I'm standing on the toppest stick,' Jerry said, craning her neck until her bonnet fell back, disclosing to view her beautiful face flushed with excitement, and her bright, wavy hair, which, moist with perspiration, clung in masses of round curls to her head and forehead.

'Great Heaven!' Arthur exclaimed, as he stood staring at the wide-open blue eyes confronting him so steadily. 'Who are you, and where did you come from?'

'I'm Jerry, and I comed from the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. Take me in, won't you?' Jerry said; and, mechanically leaning from the window, Arthur took her in, while Harold from below looked on, horror-struck with fear as to what the result might be if Jerry were left any time alone with a madman who did not like children.

'He may kill her; I must tell the folks,' he said; and, going round to the side door, he entered, without knocking, and asked for Mrs. Tracy.

But she was not at home, and so he told the servants of Jerry's danger, and begged them to go to her rescue.

'Pshaw, he won't hurt her. Charles will come pretty soon, and I'll send him up. Don't look so scared; he is harmless,' the cook said to Harold, who, in a wild state of nervous fear, went back to the cherry trees, where he could listen and hear the first scream which should proclaim Jerry's danger.

But none came, and could he have looked into the room, where Jerry sat, or rather stood, he would have been amazed.

As Arthur lifted Jerry through the window, and put her down upon the floor, he said to her:

'Take off that bonnet and let me look at you.'

She obeyed and stood before him with all her wealth of hair tumbling about her glowing face, and an eager, questioning expression in her blue eyes, which looked at him so fearlessly. Arthur knew perfectly well who she was, but something about her so dazed and bewildered him that for a moment he could not speak, but stared at her with the hungry, wistful look of one longing for something just within his reach, but still unattainable.

'Do you like me?' Jerry asked at last.

'Like you?' he replied. 'Yes. Why did you not come to me sooner?'

And, stooping, he kissed the cherry-stained mouth as he had never kissed a child before.

Sitting down upon the lounge, he took her in his lap and said to her again:

'Who are you, and where did you come from? I know your name is Jerry, which is a strange one for a girl, and I know you live with Mrs. Crawford, but before that night where did you live? Where did you come from?'

'Out of the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. I told you that once,' Jerry said. 'Harold found me. I am his little girl. He is out in the cherry tree, and said I must not come up, because you were crazy and would hurt me. You won't hurt me, will you? And be you crazy?'

'Hurt you? No,' he answered, as he parted the rings of her hair from her low brow. 'I don't know whether I am crazy or not They say so, and perhaps I am, when my head is full of bumble-bees.'

'Oh—h!' Jerry gasped, drawing back from him. 'Can they get out? And will they sting?'

Arthur burst into a merry laugh, the first he had known since he came back to Shannondale. Jerry was doing him good. There was something very soothing in the touch of the little warm hands he held in his, and something puzzling and fascinating, too, in the face of the child. He did not think of a likeness to any one; he only knew that he felt drawn toward her in a most unaccountable manner, and found himself wondering greatly who she was.

'Harold told me there were pictures and marble people up here with nothing on, and everything, and that's why I comed—that and to bring you some cherries. I like pictures. Can I see them?' Jerry said.

'Yes, you shall see them,' Arthur replied; and he led her into the room where Gretchen's picture looked at them from the window.

'Oh, my!' Jerry exclaimed, with bated breath, 'Ain't she lovely! Is she God's sister?' and folding her hands together, she stood before the picture as reverently as a devout Catholic stands before a Madonna.

It was some time since Jerry had spoken a word of German, but as she stood before Gretchen's picture old memories seemed to revive, and with them the German word for pretty, which she involuntarily spoke aloud.

Low as was the utterance, it caught Arthur's ear, and grasping her shoulder, he said:

'What was that? What did you say, and where did you learn it?'

His manner frightened her; perhaps the bumble-bees were coming out, and she drew back from him, forgetting entirely what she had said.

'It was a German word,' he continued, 'and the accent is German, too; can you speak it.'

Unconsciously as he talked, he dropped into that language, and Jerry listened intently, with a strained look on her face, as if trying to recall something which came and went, but went more than it came, if that could be.

'I talked that once,' she said, 'when I lived with mamma; but she is dead. Harold found her, and I put flowers on her grave.'

Half the time she was speaking in German, or trying to, and Arthur listened in amazement, while his interest in her deepened every moment, as he took her through the rooms and showed her 'the marble people with nothing on them,' and the beautiful pictures which adorned his walls.

'How would you like to come and be my little girl?' he asked her at last, when, remembering Harold and the cherries, she told him she must go, and started toward the window as if she would make her egress as she had come in.

'Can Harold come, too? I can't leave Harold,' she said Then, as she caught sight of him still standing at a distance, gazing curiously up at the window through which she had disappeared, she called out, 'Yes Harold; I'm coming. I have seen him and everything, and he did not hurt me. Good-bye!' and she turned toward Arthur with a little nod.

Then, before he could stop her, she sprang out upon the ladder, and went down faster than she had come up, leaving the pail of cherries upon the window-sill, and leaving, too, in Arthur's breast a tumult of emotions which he could not define.

That night, when Frank, who had heard in much alarm of Jerry's visit to his brother, went up to see him, he found him more cheerful and natural than he had seen him in weeks. As Frank expected, his first words were of the little girl who had come to him through the window and left him the cherries, of which he said he had eaten so many that he feared they might make him sick. What did Frank know of the child? What had he learned of her history? Of course he had made enquiries everywhere?

It was just in the twilight, before the gas was lighted, and so Arthur did not see how his brother's face flamed at first and then grew white as he recapitulated what the reader already knows, dwelling at length upon the enquiries he had made in New York, all of which had been fruitless. There was the name Jerrine on the child's clothing, he said and the initials 'N.B.' on that of her mother, who was evidently French, although she must have come from Germany.'

'Yes,' Arthur replied, 'the child is a German, and interests me greatly. Her face and something in her voice has haunted me all the afternoon. Was there nothing in that trunk or the carpet-bag which would be a clue?'

'Nothing,' Frank replied, although it seemed to him it was the shadow speaking for him, or at least putting the lie into his mouth. There were articles of clothing, all very plain, and a picture book printed at Leipsic, I can get that for you if you like, though it tells nothing unless it he that the mother lived in Leipsic.'

Frank talked very rapidly, and laid so much stress on Leipsic, that Arthur got an idea that Jerry had actually come from there, just as his brother meant he should, and he began to speak of the town and recall all he knew of it.

'I was never there but once,' he said, 'for although I spent a great deal of time in Germany, it was mostly in Heidleberg and Wiesbaden. Oh, that is lovely,—Wiesbaden—and nights now, when I cannot sleep, I fancy that I am there again, in the lovely park, and hear the music of the band, and see the crowds of people strolling through the grounds, and I am there with them, though apart from the rest, just where a narrow path turns off from a bridge, and a seat is half hidden from view behind the thick shrubberies. There I sit again with Gretchen, and feel her hand in mine and her dear head on my arm. Oh, Gretchen—'

There was a sob now in his voice, and he seemed to be talking to himself rather than to his brother, who said to him:

'Gretchen lived in Wiesbaden, then?'

'Yes; but for heaven's sake pronounce it with a V, and not a W, and in two syllables instead of three,' Arthur answered, pettishly, his ear offended as it always was with a discordant sound or mispronounciation.

'Veesbaden, then,' Frank repeated, understanding now why Jerry had stumbled over the name when he once spoke it to her.

Clearly she had come from Wiesbaden, where Gretchen had lived, and where he believed she had died, though he did not tell Arthur so; he merely said:

'Gretchen was your sweetheart, I suppose?'

But Arthur did not reply; he never replied to direct questions as to who Gretchen was, but after a moment's silence, he said:

'You speak of her as something past. Do you believe she is dead?'

'Yes, I do,' was Frank's decided answer. You have never told me who she was, though I have my own opinion on the subject, and I know that you loved her very much, and if she loved you so much—'

'She did—she did; she loved me more—far more than I deserved,' was Arthur's vehement interruption.

'Well, then,' Frank continued, 'if she did, and were living, she would have come to you, or answered your letters, or sent you some messenger.'

Frank's voice trembled here, and be seemed to see again the cold, still face of the dead woman, whose lips, could they have spoken, might have unlocked the mystery and brought a message from Gretchen'

'True, true,' Arthur replied. 'She would have come or written. How long is it since I came home?'

'Four years next October,' Frank said.

'Four years;' Arthur went on, 'is it so long as that? And it, was then more than three years since I had seen her. Everything was blotted out from my mind from the time that I entered that accursed maison de sante until I found myself in Paris. I am afraid she is dead.'

Just then Charles came in with lights and the chocolate his master always took before retiring, and so Frank said good-night, and went out upon the broad piazza, hoping the night air would cool his heated brow, or that the laughter and prattle of Jack and Maude, who were frolicking on the gravel walk, would drown the voice of the shadow which said to him:

'But for the number of years he says it is since he saw Gretchen, there could be no doubt, and you would be the biggest rascal living. As it is, you need not distress yourself—Jerry is nothing to him; and if she were, you have gone too far now to go back. People would never respect you again. And then there is Maude. You cannot disgrace her.'

No, he could not disgrace his darling Maude, who, as if guessing that he was thinking of her, came up the steps to his side, and seating herself upon his lap, pushed the hair from his forehead with her soft fingers, and kissed him lovingly as she was wont to do.

'My beautiful Maude,' he thought, for he knew she would be beautiful, with her black hair, and starry eyes, and brilliant complexion, and he loved her with all the strength of his nature. To see her grow into womanhood, admired and sought after by everyone, was the desire of his heart, and as he believed that money was necessary to the perfect fulfilment of his desire, for her sake he would carry his secret to the grave.

'Are you sick, papa?' Maude asked, looking into his pale face, on which the moon shone brightly.

'No, pet,' he answered, 'only tired. I am thinking of little Jerry Crawford. She was here this afternoon,'

'Yes, I saw her in the park with Harold. Isn't he handsome, papa? and such a nice boy! so different from Tom,' said Maude, and then she went on: 'Jerry is pretty too; prettier than I am; her hair curls and mine doesn't, but her dress is so ugly—that old high apron and calico gown. What makes her so poor and me so rich?'

Mr. Tracy groaned inwardly, as he replied:

'You are not rich, my child.'

'Oh, yes, I am,' Maude said, 'I heard mamma tell Mrs. Brinsmade so. She said Uncle Arthur was worth a million, and when he died we should have it all, because he could not make a will if he wanted to, and he had no children of his own,'

Although little more than seven years old, Maude Tracy was very knowing and precocious in some respects, and, like her brother Tom, had heard so much from her mother and others of their prospective wealth, that she understood the situation far better than she ought, and was already counting on the thousands waiting for her when her uncle died. And yet Maude Tracy had in her nature qualities which were to ripen into a noble womanhood. Truthful and generous, her instincts of right and wrong were very keen, and young as she was she had no respect for anything like deception or trickery. This her father knew, and his bitterest pang of remorse came from this thought, 'What would Maude say if she knew?' And it was more for her sake he was sinning than for his own or that of any other. She was so pretty, or would be when grown to young ladyhood, and the adornments which money could bring would so well become her.

'Maude,' he said at last, 'how would you like to change places with Jerry? That is, let her come here and live, while we go away and be poor; not quite as she is, but like many people.'

'And not wear a sash, and beads, and buttoned boots every day?' Maude interrupted him quickly. 'I should not like it at all. Why, Jerry dresses herself, and wipes the dishes, and wears those big aprons all the time. No, I don't want to be poor;' and as if something in her father's mind had communicated itself to her, she raised her head from his shoulder and looked beseechingly at him.

'Nor shall you be poor, if I can help it,' he said; 'but you must be very kind to Jerry, and never let her feel that you are richer than she. Do you understand?'

'I think I do,' Maude answered, adding as she kissed him fondly: 'And now I s'pose I must go, for there is Hetty come for me; so, good-night, you dearest, best papa in the world.'

He knew that she believed in him fully; that should he confess his fault she would understand it, and lose faith in him. He would bear the burden, he said to himself. There should be no more repining or looking back, Maude must never know; and so Jerry's chance was lost.

The next morning Arthur awoke with a racking headache. He was accustomed to it, it is true; but this one was particularly severe.

'It's the cherries; no wonder; a quart of those sour things would turn upside down any stomach,' Charles said, as he glanced at the empty tin pail which was adorning an inlaid table, and then suggested a dose of ipecac as a means of dislodging the offending cherries.

But Arthur declined the medicine. His stomach was well enough, he said. It was his head which ached, and nothing would help that like the touch of the cool little hands he had held in his the previous day. Charles must go for Jerry—go at once, for he wanted her, and as when Arthur wanted a thing he wanted it immediately, Charles was soon on his way to the cottage in the lane, where he found the little girl under a tall lilac bush, busy with the mud pies she was making, and talking to herself, partly in English and partly in broken German, which she had resumed since visiting the park.

'Seemed like something I had dreamed, when he talked like that, and I could almost do it myself,' she said to Harold when describing the particulars of her interview with Mr. Tracy, and her tongue fell naturally into the language of her babyhood.

On hearing Charles' errand, her delight was unbounded.

'Iss. You'll let me go,' she cried, as she stood before Mrs. Crawford, with the mud-spots on her hands and face; 'and you'll let me wear my best gown now, and my white apron with the shoulder-straps, and my morocco shoes, because this visiting.'

As Mrs. Crawford could see no objection to the plan, Jerry was soon dressed, and on her way to the Park House, which seemed to her to be a very palace, and until the day before a place to be looked upon with awe, and admired breathlessly at a distance. Indeed, she had sometimes, when passing near the house, walked on tiptoe, as if on sacred ground, and held back her humble dress lest it should harm a shrub or vine by contact. But matters now were changed. She had been there, and was going there again by special invitation from the master, and she tripped along airily with a sense of dignity and importance unusual in one so young.

Mrs. Tracy, who seldom troubled herself with her brother-in-law's affairs, knew nothing of his having sent for Jerry, and was surprised when she saw her coming up the walk with Charles, whose manner indicated that he knew perfectly what he was about. She had heard of Jerry's visit on the previous day, and had wondered what Arthur could find in that child to interest him, when he would never allow Maude in his room. She knew nothing of the shadow which night and day was nearer to her husband than she was herself, but she did not fancy Jerry, because of the three dollars a week, which she felt was so much taken from herself. Why they should be burdened with the support of the child, just because her mother happened to be found dead upon their premises, she could not understand.

Had Jerry been older, she might, she said, have taken her into the kitchen as maid of all work, for Dolly had reached a point where she liked a great many servants in the household, and prided herself upon employing more help than either Grace Atherton or Edith St. Claire. Only that morning she had spoken to her husband of Jerry, and asked him how long he proposed to support her.

'Just as long as I have a dollar of my own, and she needs it,' was his reply, as he left the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving her to think him almost as crazy as his brother.

Thus it was not in a very quiet frame of mind that she went out upon the cool, broad piazza, and, taking one of the large willow chairs standing there, began to rock back and forth and wonder what had so changed her husband, making him silent and absent-minded, and even irritable at times, as he had been that morning. Was there insanity in his veins as well as in his brother's, and would her children inherit—her darling Maude, of whom she was so proud, and who, she hoped, would some day be the richest heiress in the county and marry Dick St. Claire, if, indeed, she did not look even higher?

It was at this point in her soliloquy that she saw Jerry coming up the walk, her face glowing with excitement and her manner one of freedom and assurance.

Ascending the steps, Jerry nodded and smiled at the lady, whose expression was not very inviting, and who, to the child's remark, 'I've comed again,' answered, icily:

'I see you have. Seems to me you come pretty often.' Turning to Charles, Mrs. Tracy continued:

'Why is she here again so soon? What does she want?'

Quick to detect and interpret the meaning of the tones of a voice, and hearing disapprobation in Mrs. Tracy's, Jerry's face was shadowed at once, and she looked up entreatingly at Charles, who said:

'Mr. Tracy sent me for her. She was with him yesterday, and he will have her again to-day.'

Then Jerry's face brightened, and she chimed in:

'Iss, I'm visiting, I'm invited, and I'm going to stay to eat.'

Mrs. Tracy dared not interfere with Arthur, even if he took Jerry to live there altogether, and, with a bend of her head, she signified to Charles that the conference was ended.

'Come, Jerry,' Charles said; but Jerry held back a moment, and asked:

'Where's Maude?'

If Mrs. Tracy heard, she did not reply, and Jerry followed on after Charles through the hall and up the broad staircase to the darkened room where Arthur lay, suffering intense pain in the head, and moaning occasionally. But he heard the patter of the little feet, for he was listening for it, and when Jerry entered his room he raised himself upon his elbow, and reaching the other hand toward her, said:

'So you have come again, little Jerry; or, perhaps I should call you little Cherry, considering how you first came to me. Would you like that name?'

'Iss,' was Jerry's reply, in the quick, half-lisping way which made the monosyllable so attractive.

'Well, then, Cherry,' Arthur continued, 'take off that bonnet, and open the blind behind me so I can see your face. Then bring that stool and sit where I can look at you while you rub my head with your hands. It aches enough to split, and I believe the bumble bees are swarming; but they can't get out, and if they could, they are the white-faced kind, which never sting.'

Jerry knew all about white-faced bumble-bees, for Harold had caught them for her, and with this fear removed, she did as Arthur bade her, and was soon seated at his side, rubbing his forehead, where the blue veins were standing out full and round, and smoothing his hair caressingly with her fingers, which seemed to have in them a healing power, for the pain and heat grew less under their touch, and, after a while Arthur fell into a quiet sleep.

When he awoke, after half an hour or so, it was with a delicious sense of rest and freedom from pain. Jerry had dropped the shades to shut out the sunlight, and was walking on tiptoe round the room, arranging the furniture and talking to herself in whispers, as she usually did when playing alone.

'Jerry,' Arthur said to her, and she was at his side in a moment, 'you are an enchantress. The ache is all gone from my head, charmed away by your hands. Now, come and sit by me again, and tell me all you know of yourself before Harold found you. Where did you live? What was your mother's name? Try and recall all you can.'

Jerry, however, could tell him very little besides the Tramp House, and the carpet-bag, and Harold letting her fall in the snow. Of the cold and the suffering she could recall nothing, or of the journey from New York in the cars. She did remember something about the ship, and her mother's seasickness, but where she lived before she went to the ship she could not tell. It was a big town, she thought, and there was music there, and a garden, and somebody sick. That was all. Everything else was gone entirely, except now and then when vague glimpses of something in the past bewildered and perplexed her. Her pantomime of the dying woman and the child had not been repeated for more than a year, for now her acting always took the form of the tragedy in the Tramp House, with herself in the carpet-bag and a lay figure dead beside her. But gradually, as Arthur questioned her, the old memories began to come back and shape themselves in her mind, and he said at last:

'It was like this—playin' you was a sick lady and I was your nurse. I can't think of her name, I guess I'll call her Manny. And there must be a baby; that's me, only I can't think of my name.'

'Call it Jerry, then,' Arthur suggested, both interested and amused, though he did not quite understand what she meant.

But he was passive in her hands, and submitted to have a big handkerchief put over his head for a cap, to hold on his arm the baby she improvised from a sofa-cushion of costly plush, around which she arranged as a dress an expensive tablespread, tied with the rich cord and tassel of his dressing-gown.

'You must cry a great deal,' she said, 'and pray a great deal, and kiss the baby a great deal, and I must scold you some for crying so much, and shake the baby some in the kitchen for making a noise, because, you know, the baby can walk and talk, and is me, only I can't be both at a time.'

She was not very clear in her explanations, but Arthur began to have a dim perception of her meaning, and did what she bade him do, and rather enjoyed having his face and hands washed with a wet rag, and his hair brushed and turled, as she called it, even though the fingers which turled it sometimes made suspicious journeyings to her mouth. He cried when she told him to cry; he coughed when she told him to cough; he kissed the baby when she told him to kiss it; he took medicine from the tin pail in the form of the cherry juice left there, and did not have to make believe that it sickened him, as she said he must, for that was a reality. But when she told him he must die, but pray first, he demurred, and asked what he should say. Jerry hesitated a little. She knew that her prayers were 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' but it seemed to her that a person dying should say something else, and at last she replied:

'I can't think what she did say, only a lot about him. There was a him somewhere, and I guess he was naughty, so pray for him, and the baby—that's me—and tell Manny she must take me to Mecky,'

'To whom?' Arthur asked, and she replied:

'To Mecky, where he was, don't you know?'

Arthur did not know, but he prayed for him, saying what she bade him say—a mixture half English, half German.

'There now, you are dead,' she said at last, as she closed his eyes and folded his hand upon his chest, 'You are dead, and mustn't stir nor breathe, no matter how awful we cry, Man-nee and I.'

Kneeling down beside him, she began to cry so like that of two persons that if Arthur had not known to the contrary, he would have sworn there were two beside him, a woman and a child, the voice of the one shrill and clear, and young, and frightened, the other older, and harsher, and stronger, and both blending together in a most astonishing manner.

'With a little practice she would make a wonderful ventriloquist,' Arthur thought, as he watched her flitting about the room, talking to unseen people and giving orders with regard to himself.

Once Frank had witnessed a pantomine very similar to this, only then the play had ended with the death, while now there was the burial, and when Arthur moved a little and asked if he might get up, she laid her hand quickly on his mouth, with a peremptory 'hush! you are dead and we must bury you.'

But here Jerry's memory failed her, and the funeral which followed was an imitation of the one which had left the Park House three years before, and which Arthur had watched from his window. Frank was there, and his wife, and Peterkin, and Jerry imitated the voices of them all, and when someone bade her kiss her mother she stooped and kissed Arthur's forehead, and said:

'Good-bye, mamma,' then throwing a thin tidy over his face, she continued, 'Now, I am going to shut the coffin,' and as she worked at the corners, as if driving down the screws, Arthur felt as if he were actually being shut out from life, and light, and the world.

To one of his superstitious tendencies the whole was terribly real, and when at last she told him he was buried, and the folks had come back, and he could get up, the sweat was standing upon his face and hands in great drops, and he felt that he had in very truth been present at the obsequies of some one, whose death had made an impression so strong upon Jerry's mind that time had not erased it. There was in his heart no thought of Gretchen, as there had been in Frank's when he was a spectator at the play. He had no cause for suspicion, and thought only of the child whose restlessness and activity were something appalling to him.

'Now, what shall we play next?' she asked, as he sat white and trembling in his chair.

'Oh, nothing, nothing,' he groaned, 'I cannot stand any more now.'

'Well, then, you sit still, and I'll clean house; it needs it badly. Such mud as that boy brings in I never saw, and I'm so lame, too!' Jerry responded, and Arthur recognized Mrs. Crawford, whose tidiness and cleanliness were proverbial, and for the next half hour he watched the little actress as she limped around the room exactly as Mrs. Crawford limped with her rheumatism, sweeping, dusting, and scolding a little, both to Harold and Jerry, the latter of whom once retorted:

'I would not be so cross as that if I had forty rheumatisses in my laigs, would you, Harold?'

But Harold only answered, softly:

'Hush, Jerry I you should not speak so to grandmamma, and she so good to us both, when we haven't any mother.'

Arthur would have laughed, so perfect was the imitation of voice and gesture, but at the mention of Harold's mother there came into his mind a vision of sweet Amy Crawford, who had been his first love, and for whose son he had really done so little.

'Jerry,' he said, 'I guess you have cleaned house long enough. Wash your hands and come to me.'

She obeyed him, and looking into his face, said:

'Now, what? can you play cat's cradle or casino?'

'No; I want to talk to you of Harold. You love him very much?'

'Oh, a hundred bushels—him and grandma, too.'

'And he is very kind to you?'

'Yes, I guess he is. He never talks back, and I am awful sometimes, and once I spit at him, and struck him; but I was so sorry and cried all night, and offered to give him my best doll 'cause it was the plaything I loved most, and I went without my piece of pie so he could have two pieces if he wanted,' Jerry said, her voice trembling as she made this confession, which gave Arthur a better insight into her real character than he had had before.

Hasty, impulsive, repentant, generous, and very affectionate, he felt sure she was, and he continued;

'Does Harold go to school?'

'Yes; and I too—to the district; but I hate it!' Jerry replied.

'Why hate it?' Arthur asked. 'What is the matter with the district school?'

'Oh, it smells awful there sometimes when it is hot,' Jerry replied with an upward turn to her nose. 'And the boys are so mean, some of them. Bill Peterkin goes there and I can't bear him, he plagues me so. Wants to kiss me. A-a-h, and says I am to be his wife, and he has got warts on his thumb!'

Jerry's face was sufficiently indicative of the disgust she felt for Bill Peterkin with his warts, and leaning back in his chair, Arthur laughed heartily, as he said:

'And you do not like Bill Peterkin? Well, what boys do you like?'

'Harold and Dick St. Claire,' was the prompt response, and Arthur continued:

'What would you have in place of the district school?'

'A governess,' was Jerry's answer. 'Nina St. Claire has one, and Ann Eliza Peterkin has one, and Maude Tracy has one.'

Here Jerry stopped suddenly, as if struck with a new idea.

'Why, Maude is your little girl, isn't she? You are her rich uncle, and she is to have all your money when you die. I wish I was your little girl.'

She spoke the last very sadly, and something in the expression of her face brought Gretchen to Arthur's mind, and his voice was choked as he said to her:

'I'd give half my fortune if you were my little girl.'

Then laying his hand on her bright hair, he questioned her adroitly of her life at the cottage, finding that it was a very happy one, and that she had never known want, although Mrs. Crawford was unable to work as she once had done, and was largely dependent upon the price for Jerry's board, which Frank paid regularly. Of this, however, Jerry did not speak. She only said:

'Harold works in the furnace, and in folks' gardens, and does lots of things for everybody, and once Bill Peterkin twitted him because he goes to Mrs. Baker's sometimes after stuff for the pig, and Harold cried, and I got up early the next morning and went after it myself and drew the cart home. After that grandma wouldn't let Harold go for any more, so I s'pose the pig will not weigh as much, I'm sorry, for I like sausage, don't you?'

Arthur hated it, but he did not tell her so, and she went on.

'Harold studies awful hard, and wants to go to college. He is trying to learn Latin and recites to Dick St. Claire; but grandma says it is up-hill business. Oh, if I's only rich I'd give it all to Harold, and he should get learning like Dick. Maybe I can work some time and earn some money. I wish I could.'

Arthur did not speak for a long time, but sat looking at the child whose face now wore an old and troubled look. In his mind he was revolving a plan which, with, his usual precipitancy, he resolved to carry into effect at once. But he said nothing of it to Jerry, whose attention was diverted by the entrance of Charles and the preparations for luncheon, which on the little girl's account, was served with more care than usual.

Jerry, who had a great liking for everything luxurious, had taken tea once or twice at Grassy Spring with Nina St. Claire, and had been greatly impressed with the appointments of the table, prizing them more even than the dainties for her to eat. But what she had seen there seemed as nothing compared to this round Swiss table, with its colored glass and rare china, no two pieces of which were alike.

'Oh, it is just like a dream!' she cried, as she watched Charles' movement and saw that there were two places laid.

'Am I to sit down with you?' she said in an awe-struck voice, 'and in that lovely chair? I am glad I wore my best gown. It won't dirty the chair a bit.'

But she took her pocket handkerchief and covered over the satin cushion before she dared seat herself in the chair, which had once been brought out for Gretchen, and in which she now sat down, dropping her head and shutting her eyes a moment Then, as she heard no sound, she looked up wonderingly, and asked:

'Ain't you going to say "for Christ's Sake?" grandma does.'

Arthur's face was a study with its mixed expression of surprise, amusement, and self-reproach. He never prayed except it were in some ejaculatory sentences wrung from him in his sore need, and the thought of asking a blessing on his food had never occurred to him. But Jerry was persistent.

'You must say "for Christ's sake,"' she continued, and, with his weak brain all in a muddle, Arthur began what he meant to be a brief thanksgiving, but which stretched itself into a lengthy prayer, fall of the past and of Gretchen, whom he seemed to be addressing rather than his Maker.

For a while Jerry listened reverently; then she looked up and moved uneasily in the chair, and at last when the prayer had continued for at least five minutes, she burst out impulsively:

'Oh, dear, do say "amen." I am so hungry!'

That broke the spell, and with a start Arthur came to himself, and said:

'Think you, Jerry, praying is a new business for me, and I do believe I should have gone on forever if you had not stopped me. Now, what will you have?'

He helped her to whatever she liked best, but could eat scarcely anything himself. It was sufficient for him to watch Jerry sitting there in Gretchen's chair and using Gretchen's plate, which every day for so many years had been laid for her. Gretchen had not come. She would never come, he feared, but with Jerry he did not feel half as desolate as when alone, with only his morbid fancies for company. And he must have her there, at least a portion of the time. His mind was made up on that point, and when about four o'clock, Jerry said to him:

'I want to go now. Grandma said I was to be home by five,' she replied:

'Yes, I am going with you. I wish to see your grandmother. I am going to drive you in the phaeton. How would you like that?'

Her dancing eyes told him how she would like it, and Charles was sent to the stable with an order to have the little pony phaeton brought round as soon as possible as he was going for a drive.



CHAPTER XIX.

ARTHUR'S PLAN

'Why, the madam is going to drive, too, and I've come to harness; there'll be a row somewhere,' John said.

'Can't help it,' Charles replied, 'Mr. Arthur wants the phaeton, and will have it for all of Madam.'

'Yes, I s'p'o' so. Wall, I'll go and tell her,' was John's rejoinder, as he started for the house, where Mrs. Tracy was just drawing on her long driving gloves, and admiring her new hat and feather before the glass.

Dolly looked almost as young, and far prettier, than when the came to the park, eleven years before. A life of luxury suited her. She had learned to take things easily, and the old woman with the basket might now come every day to her kitchen door without her knowing it. She aped Mrs. Atherton of Brier Hill, in everything, and had the satisfaction of knowing that she was on all occasions quite as stylish-looking and well-dressed as that aristocratic lady whom she called her intimate friend. She had also grown very proud and very exclusive in her ideas, and when poor Mrs. Peterkin, who was growing, too, with her million, ventured to call at the park, the call was returned with a card which Doily's coachman left at the door. Since the night of her party, and the election which followed when Frank was defeated, she had ignored the Peterkins, and laughed at what she called their vulgar imitation of people above them, and when she heard that Mary Jane hail hired a governess for her two children, Bill and Ann Eliza, she scoffed at the airs assumed by come-up people, and wondered if Mrs. Peterkin had forgotten that she was one of Grace Atherton's hired girls. Dolly had certainly forgotten the Langley life, and was to all intents and purposes the great lady of the park, who held herself aloof from the common herd, and taught her children to do the same.

She had seen Jerry enter the house that morning with a feeling of disapprobation, which had not diminished as the day wore on and still the child staid, and what was worse, Maude was not sent for to join her.

'Not that I would have allowed it, if she had been,' she said to herself, for she did not wish her daughter intimate with one of whose antecedents nothing was known, but Arthur might at least have invited her. He had never noticed her children much, and this she deeply resented. Maude, who knew of Jerry's presence in the house had cried to go in and play with her, but Mrs. Tracy had refused, and promised as an equivalent a drive in the phaeton around the town. And it was for this drive Dolly was preparing herself, when John came with the message that she could not have the phaeton, as Mr. Arthur was going to take Jerry home in it.

Usually Arthur's slightest wish was a law in the household, for that was Frank's order; but on this occasion Dolly felt herself justified in rebelling.

'Not have the phaeton! That's smart, I must say,' she exclaimed. 'Can't that child walk home, I'd like to know? Tell Mr. Tracy Maude has had the promise of a drive all day, and I am ready, with my things on. Ask him to take the Victoria; he never drives.'

All this in substance was repeated to Arthur, who answered, quietly:

'Let Mrs. Tracy take the victoria. I prefer the phaeton myself.'

That settled it, and in few moments Jerry was seated at Arthur's side, and skimming along through the park, and out upon the highway which skirted the river for miles.

'This is not going home, and grandma will scold,' Jerry said.

'Never mind the grandma—I will make it right with her. I am going to show you the country,' Arthur replied, as he chirruped to the fleet pony who seemed to fly along the smooth road.

No one who saw the tall, elegant-looking man, who sat so erect, and handled the reins so skilfully, would ever have suspected him of insanity, and more than one stopped to gaze after him and the little girl whose face, with the golden hair blowing about it, looked out from the white sun bonnet with so joyous an expression. On the homeward route they met the victoria, with John upon the box, and Mrs. Tracy and Maude inside.

'There's Maude! Hallo, Maude—see me! I'm riding!' Jerry called out, cheerily, while Maude answered back:

'Hallo, Jerry!'

But Mrs. Tracy gave no sign of recognition, and only rebuked her daughter for her vulgarity in saying 'Hallo,' which was second class and low.

'Then Nina St. Claire is second class and low, for she says "Hallo,"' was Maude's reply, to which her mother had no answer.

Meanwhile the phaeton was going swiftly on toward the cottage, which it reached a few minutes after the furnace whistle blew for six, and Harold, who had been working there, came up the lane. There were soiled spots on his hands and on his face, and his clothes showed marks of toil, all of which Arthur noted, while he was explaining to Mrs. Crawford that he had taken Jerry for a drive, and kept her beyond the prescribed hour. Then, turning to Harold, he said:

'And so you work in the furnace?'

'Yes, sir, during vacation, when I can get a job there,' Harold answered, and Mr. Tracy continued:

'How much do you get a day?'

'Fifty cents in dull times,' was the reply, and Arthur went on:

'Fifty cents from seven in the morning to six at night, and board yourself. A magnificent sum truly. Pray, how do you manage to spend so much? You must be getting rich.'

The words were sarcastic, but the tone belied the words, and Harold was about to speak, when his grandmother interrupted him, and said,

'What he does not spend for us he puts aside. He is trying to save enough to go to the High School, but it's slow work. I can do but little myself, and it all falls upon Harold.'

'But I like it, grandma. I like to work for you and Jerry, and I have almost twenty dollars saved,' Harold said, 'and in a year or two I can go away to school, and work somewhere for my board. Lots of boys do that.'

Arthur was hitching his pony to the fence, while a new idea was dawning in his mind.

'Fifty cents a day,' he said to himself, 'and he has twenty dollars saved, and thinks himself rich. Why, I've spent more than that on one bottle of wine, and here is this boy, Amy's son, wanting an education, and working to support his grandmother like a common laborer. I believe I am crazy.'

He was in the cottage by this time—in the clean, cool kitchen where the supper table was laid with its plain fair, most unlike the costly viands which daily loaded his board.

'Don't wait for me, Harold must be hungry,' he said, adding quickly: 'Or stay, if you will permit me, I will take a cup of tea with you. The drive has given me an appetite, and your tea smells very inviting.'

It was a great honor to have Arthur Tracy at her table, and Mrs. Crawford felt it as such, and was very sorry, too, that she had nothing better to offer him than bread and butter and radishes, with milk, and a dish of cold beans, and chopped beets, and a piece of apple pie saved for Harold from dinner. But she made him welcome, and Jerry, delighted to return the hospitality she had received, brought him a clean plate and cup and saucer, and asked if she might get the best sugar-bowl and the white sugar. Then, remembering the beautiful flowers which had adorned the table at Tracy Park, she ran out and gathering a bunch of June pinks, put them in a little glass by his plate.

When all was ready and they had taken their seats at the table, Mrs. Crawford closed her eyes reverently and asked the accustomed blessing which in that house preceded every meal. Jerry's amen was a good deal louder and more emphatic than usual, while she nodded her head to Arthur, with an expression which he understood to mean, 'You know now what you ought to say, instead of that long prayer,' and he nodded back that he did so understand it.

Arthur enjoyed the supper immensely, or pretended that he did. He ate three slices of bread and butter; he drank three cups of tea; he even tried the beans and the beets, but declined the radishes, which, he said, would give him the nightmare.

When supper was over and the table cleared away, he still showed no signs of going, but asking Mrs. Crawford to take a seat near him, he plunged at once into the business which had brought him there, and which, since he had seen Harold in his working-dress and heard what he was trying to do, had grown to be of a two-fold nature. He was very lonely, he said, and all the elegance and luxuriousness of his handsome house failed to give him pleasure or to make him forget the past. He wanted some one to love who would love him in return, and the little taste he had had of Jerry's society had made him wish for more, and he must have her with him a part at least of every day.

'In short,' he said, 'I should like to undertake her education myself until she is older, when I shall see that she has the proper finishing. She tells me she hates the district school, with Bill Peterkin and his warts—'

'Trying to kiss me,' Jerry interrupted, as open-eyed and open-mouthed, she stood, with her hand on his shoulder, listening to him.

'Yes, trying to kiss you, though I do not blame him much for that,' Arthur said, with a smile, and then continued: 'She is ambitious enough to want a governess like Ann Eliza Peterkin and my brother's daughter, but I am better than a dozen governesses. I can teach her all the rudiments of an English education, with French and German, and Latin, too, if she likes; and my plan is, that she come to me every day except Saturdays and Sundays—come at ten in the morning, get her lessons and her lunch with me, and return home at four in the afternoon. Would you like it, Cherry?'

'Oh-h-oh!' was all the answer Jerry could make for a moment, but her cheeks were scarlet, and tears of joy stood in her eyes, until she glanced at Harold; then all the brightness faded from her face, for how could she accept this great good and leave him to drudge and toil alone?

'What is it, Cherry?' Mr. Tracy asked; and, with a half sob, she replied:

'I can't go without Harold. If I get learning, he must get learning, too,' and leaving Arthur, the crossed over to the boy, and putting her arm around him, looked up at him with a look which in after years he would have given half his life to win.

She was a little girl now and did not care if he did know how much she loved him, and that for him she would sacrifice everything. But in this case the sacrifice was not required, for Arthur hastened to say:

'I shall not forget Harold. I have something better in store for him than reciting his lessons to me. When the High School opens in September, he is going there, and if he does well he shall go to Andover in time, and perhaps to Harvard. It will all depend upon himself, and how he improves his opportunities. What! crying? Don't you like it?' Arthur asked, as he saw the great tears gathering in Harold's eyes and rolling down his cheeks.

'Yes, oh, yes; but it don't seem real, and—and—I guess it makes me kind of sick,' Harold gasped, as, freeing himself from Jerry's encircling arm, he hurried from the room, to think over this great and unexpected joy which had come so suddenly to him.

With his naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work had not been pleasant to him, and he had shrunk with inexpressible loathing from the swill cart and the other menial duties he had been obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it was now solved for him. For a moment the suddenness of the thing overcame him, and he sat down upon a table in the yard, faint and bewildered, while Arthur made his plan clear to Mrs. Crawford, saying that what he meant to do was partly for Jerry's sake and partly for the sake of the young girl who had been his early love.

'I always intended to take care of you,' he said; 'but things go from my mind, and I forget the past as completely as if it had never been. But this will stay by me, for I shall have Cherry as a reminder, and if I am in danger of forgetting she will jog my memory.'

Fur a moment Mrs. Crawford could not speak, so great was her surprise and joy that the good she had thought unattainable was to be Harold's at last. And yet something in her proud, sensitive nature rebelled against receiving so much from a stranger, even if that stranger were Arthur Tracy. It seemed like charity, she said, when at last she spoke at all. But Arthur overruled her with that persuasive way he had of converting people to his views; and when at last he left the cottage it was with the understanding that Jerry should commence her lessons with him the first week in September, and that Harold should enter the High School in Shannondale when it opened in the autumn.



CHAPTER XX.

THE WORKING OF ARTHUR'S PLAN.

As Arthur was wholly uncommunicative with regard to his affairs, and as Mrs. Crawford kept her own counsel, and bade Harold and Jerry do the same, the Tracys knew nothing whatever of the plan until the September morning when Jerry presented herself at the park house, and was met in the door-way by Mrs. Frank, who was just going out. Very few could have resisted the bright little face, so full of childish happiness, or the clear, assured voice, which said so cheerily:

'Good-morning, Mrs. Tracy. I'm come to school.'

But, prejudiced as she was against the girl, Mrs. Tracy could resist any thing, and she answered, haughtily;

'Come to school! What do you mean? This is not a school-house, and if you have any errand here, go round to the other door. Only company come in here.'

'But I'm company. I'm going to get learning; he told me to come,' Jerry answered, flushed and eager, and altogether sure of her right to be there.

Before Mrs. Frank could reply, a voice, distinct and authoritative, and to which she always yielded, called from the top of the stairway inside:

'Mrs. Tracy, if that is Jerry to whom you are talking, send her up at once. I am waiting for her.'

Jerry did not mean the nod she gave the lady as she passed her to be disrespectful, but Mrs. Frank felt it as such, and went to her own room in a most perturbed state of mind, for which she could find no vent until her husband came in, when she stated the case to him, and asked if he knew what it meant.

But Frank was as ignorant as herself, and could not enlighten her until that night, after he had seen his brother, and heard from him what he was intending to do.

'God bless you, Arthur. You don't know how happy you have made me,' Frank said, feeling on the instant that a great burden was lifted from his mind.

Jerry was to be educated and cared for, and would probably receive all that the world would naturally concede to her if the truth were known. He believed, or thought he did, that Gretchen had never been his brother's wife, though to believe so seemed an insult to the original of the sweet face which looked at him from the window every time he entered his brother's room. Jerry was a great trouble to him, and he would not have liked to confess to any one how constantly she was in his mind, or how many plans he had devised in order to atone for the wrong he knew he was doing her. And now his brother had taken her off his hands, and she was to be cared for and receive the education which would fit her to earn her own livelihood, and make her future life respectable. No particular harm was done her after all, and he might now enjoy himself, and cast his morbid fancies to the winds, he reflected, as he went whistling to his wife's apartment, and told her what he had heard.

For a moment Dolly was speechless with astonishment, and when at last she opened her lips, her husband silenced her with that voice and manner of which she was beginning to be afraid.

It was none of their business, he said, what Arthur did in his own house, provided they were not molested, and if he chose to turn schoolmaster, he had a right to do so. For his part, he was glad of it, as it saved him the expense of Jerry's education, for if Arthur had not taken it in hand, he should; and Dolly was to keep quiet and let the child come and go in peace.

After delivering himself of these sentiments, Frank went away, leaving his wife to wonder, as she had done more than once, if he, too, were not a little crazy, like his brother. But, she said no mare about Jerry's coming there, except to suggest that she might at least come in at the side door instead of the front, especially on muddy days when she was liable to soil the costly carpets. And Jerry, who cared but little how she entered the house, if she only got in, came through the kitchen after the second day, and wiped her feet upon the mat; and once, when her shoes were worse than usual, took them off, lest they should leave a track.

It is not our intention to linger over the first few months of Jerry's school days at Tracy Park, but rather to hasten on to the summer four years after her introduction to Tracy Park as Arthur's pupil. During all that time he had never once seemed to grow weary of the task he had imposed upon himself, but, on the contrary, his interest had daily deepened in the child who developed so rapidly under his training that he sometimes looked at her in astonishment, marvelling more and more who she was and from whom she had inherited her wonderful memory and power to grasp points which are usually far beyond the comprehension of a child of ten, or even twelve, and which Maude Tracy could no more have mastered than her brother, the stupid Jack. His intellect had not grown with his body, and when at thirteen he was asked the question, 'If there are five peaches on the table, and Tom eats three of them, how many will there be left?' he answered, promptly:

'None, 'cause Tom would eat them all.'

In this reply there was a shrewdness which poor Jack never intended, and the laugh which followed his answer confused and bewildered him. There was a tutor now at Tracy Park for Jack, but Maude had been transferred to Arthur's care. This was wholly due to Jerry, who alone could have induced him to let Maude share her instruction. Arthur did not care for Maude. She was dull, he said, and would never learn her lessons. But Jerry coaxed so hard that Arthur consented at last, and when Jerry had been with him about three years, Maude became his pupil, and that of Jerry as well, for nearly every day when the lessons were over the two little girls might have been seen sitting together under the trees in the park, or in some corner of the house, Maude puzzled, and perplexed, and worried, and Jerry anxious, decided, and peremptory, as she went over and over again with what was so clear to her and so hazy to her friend.

'Oh, dear me, suz, what does ail you?' she said, one day, with a stamp of her foot, after she had tried in vain to make Maude see through a simple sum in long division. 'Can't you remember first to divide, second multiply, third subtract, and fourth bring down?'

'No, I can't. I can't remember anything, and if I could, how do I know what to divide or what to bring down? I am stupid, and shall never know anything,' was Maude's sobbing reply, as she covered her face with her slate.

Maude's tears always moved Jerry, who tried to reassure the weeping girl with the assurance that perhaps, if she tried very hard, she might some time know enough to teach a district school. This was the height of Jerry's ambition, to teach a district school and board around; but Maude's aspirations were different. She was rich. She was to be a belle and wear diamonds and satins like her mother; and so it did not matter so much whether she understood long division or not, though it did hurt her a little to be so far outstripped by Jerry, who was younger than herself.

To Arthur, Jerry was a constant delight and surprise, and nothing astonished or pleased him more than the avidity with which she took up German. This language was like play to her, and by the time she was ten years old she spoke, and read, and wrote it almost as well as Arthur himself.

'It takes me back somewhere, I can't tell where,' she said to him; 'and I seem to be somebody else than Jerry Crawford, and I hear music and see people, and a pale face is close to me, and I get all confused trying to remember things which come and go.'

Only once after her first day at the park had she enacted the pantomime of the sick woman and the nurse, and then she had done it at Arthur's request. But it was not quite as thrilling as at first; the him for whom the dying woman had prayed was omitted, and the whole was mixed with the Tramp House, and the carpet-bag, and Harold, who was now a youth of seventeen, and a student at the high school in Shannondale, where he was making as rapid progress in his studies as Jerry was at the park.

But Harold's life was not as serene and happy as Jerry's, for it was not pleasant for him to hear, as he often did, that he was a charity student, supported by Arthur Tracy. Such remarks were very galling to the high-spirited boy, and he was constantly revolving all manner of schemes by which he could earn money and cease to be dependent. All through the summer vacations, which were long ones, he worked at whatever he could find to do, sometimes in people's gardens, sometimes on their lawns, but oftener in the hay-fields, where he earned the most. Here Jerry was not infrequently his companion. She liked to rake hay, she said; it came natural to her, and she had no doubt she inherited the taste from her mother, who had probably worked in the fields in Germany.

One afternoon, when Jerry knew that Harold was busy in one of Mr. Tracy's meadows, she started to join him, for he had complained of a headache at home, and had expressed a fear that he might not be able to finish the task he had imposed upon himself. The road to the field was by the Tramp House, which looked so cool and quiet, with its thick covering of woodbine and ivy over it, that Jerry turned aside for a moment to look into the room which had so great a fascination for her, and where she spent so much time. Indeed, she seldom passed near it without going in for a moment and standing by the old table which had once held her and her dead mother. Things came back to her there, she said, and she could almost give a name to the pale-faced woman who haunted her so often.

As she entered the damp, dark place now, she started, with an exclamation of surprise, which was echoed by another, as Frank Tracy sprang up and confronted her. It was not often that he entered the Tramp House, and he would not have confessed to any one his superstitious dread of it, or that, when he did visit it, he always had a feeling that the dead woman found there years ago would start up to accuse him of his deceit and hypocrisy. Could he have had his way he would have pulled the building down, but it was not his, and when he suggested it to Arthur, as he sometimes did, the latter opposed it, saying latterly, since Jerry had been so much to him:

'No, no, Frank; let it stand. I like it, because but for it Jerry might have perished with her mother, and I should not have had her with me.'

So the Tramp House stood, and grew damper and mustier each year, as the moss and ivy gathered on the walls outside, and the dust and cobwebs gathered on the walls within. These, however, Jerry was careful to brush away, for she had a play house in one corner, and a little work-bench and chair, and she often sat there alone and talked to herself, and the woman dead so long ago, and to others whose faces were dim and shadowy, but whom she had felt sure she had known. Very frequently she went through the process of cleaning up, as she called it, and her object in stopping there now was, in part, to see if it did not need her care again.

'Oh, Mr. Tracy! are you here! How you scared me? I thought it was a tramp!' she said, as he came toward her.

'Do you come here often?' he asked, as he offered her his hand.

'Yes, pretty often. I like it, because mother died here, and sometimes I feel as if she would make it known to me here who she was. I talk to her and ask her to tell me, but she never has. Oh, don't you wish she would?'

Frank shuddered involuntarily, for to have Jerry told who she really was, was the last thing he could desire, but as a criminal is said always to talk about the crime he has committed and is hiding, so Frank, when with Jerry, felt impelled to talk with her of the past and what she could remember of it. Seating himself upon the bench with her at his side, he said:

'And you really believe the woman found here was your mother?'

'Why, yes. Don't you? Who was my mother, if she wasn't?' and Jerry's eyes opened wide as he looked at him.

'I don't know, I am sure. Does my brother talk of Gretchen now?' was the abrupt reply.

'Yes, at times,' Jerry answered: 'and yesterday, after I sang him a little German song, which he taught me, he had them pretty bad—the bees in his head, I mean: that is what he calls it when things are mixed; and he says he is going to write to her, or her friends.'

'Write to her! I thought he had given that up. I thought he—Did he say, "Write to her friends?"' Frank gasped as he felt himself grow cold and sick with this threatened danger.

Arthur had seemed so quiet and happy with Jerry, and had said so little of Gretchen, that Frank had grown quite easy in his mind, and the black shadow of fear did not trouble him quite so much as formerly. But now it was over him again, and grew in intensity as he questioned the child.

'Have you ever tried to find out who Gretchen is?' he asked at last.

'No,' she replied, 'but I guess she is his wife.'

'Yes,' Frank said, falteringly, 'his wife; and where do you think she lived?'

'Oh, I know that. In Wiesbaden. He told me so once, and it seems as if I had been there, too, when he talked about it, and I hear the music and see the flowers, and a white-faced woman is with me, not at all like mother, who, they say, was ugly and dark; black as a nigger, Tom told me once, when he was mad. Was she black?'

Mr. Tracy made no reply to this, but said, suddenly:

'Jerry, do you like me well enough to do me a favor, a great favor?'

'Why, yes, I guess I do. I like you very much, though not as well as I do Harold and Mr. Arthur. What do you want?' was Jerry's answer.

After hesitating a moment, Mr. Tracy began:

'There are certain reasons why I ought to know if my brother writes to Gretchen, or her friends, or any one in Germany, especially Wiesbaden. A letter of that kind might do me a great deal of harm; if he should write to any one in Germany, you would, perhaps, he asked to post the letter, as he never goes to town?'

He said this interrogatively, and Jerry answered him promptly:

'I think he would give it to me.'

'Yes, well; Jerry, can you keep a secret, and never tell any one what I am saying to you?' was Frank's next remark, to which Jerry responded:

'I think I should tell Harold, and, perhaps, Mr. Arthur.'

'No, no, no, Jerry, never!' and Frank laid his hand half menacingly upon the little girl's shoulder. 'I have been kind to you, have paid your board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there—'

He felt how mean it was to say this, and do not at all resent Jerry's quick reply:

'Yes, but Mrs. Peterkin says you do not pay enough.'

'Perhaps not,' he continued, 'but if Mrs. Crawford is satisfied, it matters little what Mrs. Peterkin thinks. Jerry, you must do this for me,' he went on rapidly, as his fears kept growing. 'You must never tell anyone of our conversation, and if my brother writes that letter soon, or at any time, you must bring it to me. Will you do it? Great harm would come if it were sent—harm to me, and harm to Maude, and—'

'To Maude!' Jerry replied. 'I would do anything for Maude. Yes, I will bring the letter to you if he writes one. You are sure it would be right for me to do so?'

Frank had touched the right cord when he mentioned his daughter's name, for during these years of close companionship the two little girls had learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry's was the stronger and less selfish attachment of the two. To her Maude was a queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased; and as the tyranny was never very severe, and was usually followed by some generous act of contrition, she did not mind it at all, and was always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious little lady.

'Yes, I will do it for Maude,' she said again; but there was a troubled look on her face, and a feeling in her heart as if, in some way, she was false to Arthur in thus consenting to his brother's wishes.

But, she reflected, Arthur was crazy, so people said, and she herself knew better than anyone else of his many fanciful vagaries, which, at times, took the form of actual insanity. For weeks he would seem perfectly rational, and then suddenly his mood would change, and he would talk strange things to himself and the child, who was now so necessary to him, and who alone had a soothing influence over him. Only the day before, as Jerry had told Frank, Arthur had been unusually excited, after listening to a simple air which he had taught to her, and which, at his request, she sang to him after Maude had gone out and left them alone.

'I could swear you were Gretchen, singing to me in the twilight, and across the meadow comes the tinkle of the bells where the cows and goats are feeding,' he said to her, as he paced up and down the room.'

Then, stopping suddenly, he went up to her, and pushing her soft, wavy hair from her forehead, looking long and earnestly into her face.

'Cherry,' he said at last, using the pet name he often gave her, 'you are some like Gretchen as she must have been when of your age. Oh, if you only were hers and mine! But there was no child; and yet—and yet—'