'And I'll do it now,' she said, at last, to herself. 'I'll fight it down, this something which makes me hate myself. If Harold loves Maude he shall never know from me of that horrible pain which cuts me like a knife and makes me forget to be indignant at Tom for talking so much of his money and his position, as if they could buy me! Poor Tom! I said some sharp things to him, but he deserved them, the prig! Let him marry that governor's daughter if he can. I am sure I wish him success.'

She had reached home by this time, and found their simple dinner waiting for her. 'Oh, grandma, why did you do it? Why didn't you wait for me?' she said, as she took her seat at the table where the dishes were all so plain, and the cloth, though white and clean, so coarse and cheap.

Jerrie was as fond of luxury and elegance as any one, and Tracy Park, with its appurtenances, would have suited her taste better than the cottage.

'But not with Tom, not with Tom,' she kept on repeating to herself, as she cleared the table and washed the dishes, and then brought in and folded the clothes for the morrow's ironing.

By this time she was very tired, and going to her cool, pretty room, she threw herself upon the lounge and slept soundly for three hours or more. Sleep is a wonderful tonic, and Jerrie rose refreshed and quite herself again. Not even a thought of Maude and Harold disturbed her as she went whistling and singing around her room, hanging up her dresses one by one, and wondering which she should wear at the garden party. Deciding at last upon a simple white muslin, which, although two years old, was still in fashion, and very becoming, she arranged her wavy hair in a fluffy mass at the back of her head, brushed her bangs into short, soft curls upon her forehead, pinned a cluster of roses on the bosom of her dress, and was ready for the party.

'Tell Harold, if he is not too tired, I want him very much to come for me,' she said, to Mrs. Crawford, and then about five o'clock started for Grassy Spring, where she found the guests all assembled in the pleasant, shady grounds, which surrounded the house.

Tom was there in his character of a fine city dandy, and the moment he saw Jerry, he hastened to meet her, greeting her with perfect self-possession, as if nothing had happened.

'You are late,' he said, going up to her. 'We are waiting for you to complete our eight hand croquet, and I claim you as my partner.'

'I c-c call that mean, T-t-tom. I was g-g-going to ask J-jerrie to pl-play with m-me,' little Billy said, hopping around them, while Dick's face showed that he, too, would like the pleasure of playing with Jerrie, who was known to be an expert and seldom missed a ball.

Naturally, however, Marian Raymond, as a stranger, would fall to him, and they were soon paired off, Dick and Marian, Tom and Jerrie, Nina and Billy, Fred Raymond and Ann Eliza, who wore diamonds enough for a full dress party, and whose red hair was piled on the top of her head so loosely that the ends of it stuck out here and there like the streamers on a boat on gala days. This careless style of dressing her hair, Ann Eliza affected, thinking it gave individuality to her appearance; and it certainly did attract general observation, her hair was so red and bushy. Dick had stumbled and stammered dreadfully when confessing to his sister that he had invited the Peterkins, while Nina had drawn a long breath of dismay as she thought of presenting Ann Eliza and Billy to Marian Raymond, with her culture and aristocratic ideas. Then she burst into a laugh and said, with her usual sweetness:

'Never mind, Dickie. You could not do otherwise. I'll prepare Marian, and the Peterkins will really enjoy it.'

So Marian, who, with all her accomplishments and foreign air, was a kind-hearted, sensible girl, was prepared, and received the Peterkins very graciously, and seemed really pleased with Billy, whose big, kind heart shone through his diminutive body and always won him friends. He was very happy to be there, because he liked society, and because he knew Jerrie was coming; and Ann Eliza was very glad because she felt it an honor to be at Grassy Spring, and because she knew Tom was coming, and when he came she fastened upon him with a tenacity which he could not well shake off; and when croquet was proposed she was the first to respond.

'Oh, yes, that will be nice, and I know our side will beat,' and she looked at Tom as it were a settled thing that she should play with him.

But Tom was not in a mood to be gracious. He had come to the entertainment, which he mentally called a bore, partly because he would not let Jerrie think he was taking her refusal to heart, and partly because he must see her again, even if she never could be his wife. All the better nature of Tom was concentrated in his love for Jerrie, and had she married him he would probably have made her as happy as a wholly selfish man can make happy the woman he loves. But she had declined his offer, and wounded him deeper than she supposed.

A hundred times he had said to himself that afternoon, as he sat alone in the lovely park—of which he had once said to Harold, he was to be the hare, and of whose possession in the future he had boasted to Jerrie—that he did not care a sou, that he was glad she had refused him, for after all it was only an infatuation on his part; that the girl of the carpet-bag was not the wife for a Tracy; but the twinge of pain in his heart belied his words, and he knew he did love Jerrie Crawford better than he should ever again love any girl, whether the daughter of a governor or of the president.

'And I go to the party, too, just to show her that I don't care, and for the sake of looking at her,' he said. 'She can't help that, and it is a pleasure to look at a woman so grandly developed and perfectly formed as she is. By Jove! Hal Hastings is a lucky dog; but I shall hate him forever.'

So Tom pulled himself together, and went to Grassy Spring in a frame of mind not the most amiable; and when croquet was proposed, he sneered at it as something quite too passe, citing lawn tennis as the only decent outdoor amusement.

'Why, then, don't you set it up on your grounds, where you have plenty of room, and ask us all over there?' Dick asked, good-humoredly, as he began to get out the mallets and balls.

To this Tom did not reply, but said, instead:

'Count me out. I don't like the game, and there are enough without me.'

Just then Jerry appeared at the gate, and he added quickly:

'Still, I don't wish to be ungracious; and now Jerrie has come, we can have an eight hand.'

Hastening toward her, he met her as we have recorded, and claimed her for his partner.

'Thank you, Tom,' Jerrie said, with a bright smile on her face, which made the young man's heart beat fast with both pleasure and pain, as he gave her the mallet and told her she was to play first.

Tom was making himself master of ceremonies, and Dick kept quiet and let him, and watched Jerrie admiringly as she made the two arches, and the third, and fourth, and then sent her ball out of harm's way. It was a long and closely contested game, for all were skilful players, except poor Ann Eliza, who was always behind and required a great deal of attention from her partner especially when it came to croqueting a ball. She did not know exactly what to do, and kept her foot so long upon the ball that less amiable girls than Nina and Jerrie would have said she did it on purpose, to show how small and pretty it looked in her closely fitting French boot. But Jerrie's side beat, as it usually did. She had become a 'rover' the second round, had rescued Tom from many a difficulty, and taken Ann Eliza through four or five wickets, besides doing good service to her other friends.

'I p-p-propose three ch-cheers for Jerrie,' Billy said, standing on his tiptoes and nearly splitting his throat with his own hurrah.

After the game was over they repaired to the piazza, where the little tables were laid for tea, and where Jerrie found herself vis-a-vis with Marian Raymond, of whom she had thought she might stand a little in awe, she had heard so much of her. But the mesmeric power which Jerrie possessed drew the Kentucky girl to her at once, and they were soon in a most animated conversation.

'You do not seem like a stranger to me,' Marian said, 'and I should almost say I had seen you before, you are so like a picture in Germany.'

'Yes,' Jerrie answered, with a gasp, and a feeling such as she always experienced when the spell was upon her and she saw things as in a dream.

'Was it in a gallery?'

'Oh, no; it was in a house we rented in Wiesbaden. You know, perhaps, that I was there at school for a long time. Then, when mamma came out, and I was through school, we stayed there for months, it was so lovely, and we rented a house which an Englishman had bought and made over. Such a pretty house it was, too, with so many flowers and vines around it.'

'And the picture—did it belong to the Englishman?' Jerrie asked.

'Oh, no,' Marian replied: 'it did not seem to belong to anybody. Mr. Carter—that was the name of our landlord—said it was there in the wall when he took the house, which was then very small and low, with only two or three rooms. He bought it because of the situation, which, though very quiet and pleasant, was so near the Kursaal that we could always hear the music without going to the garden.

'Yes,' Jerrie said again, with her head on one side, and her ear turned up, as if she were listening to some far-off, forgotten strains. 'Yes; and the picture was like me, you say—how like me?'

'Every way like you,' Marian replied; 'except that the original must have been younger when it was taken—sixteen, perhaps—and she was smaller than you, and wore a peasant's dress, and was knitting on a bench under a tree, with the sunshine falling around her, and at a little distance a gentleman stood watching her. But what is the matter, Miss Crawford? Are you sick?' Marian asked, suddenly, as she saw the bright color fade for an instant from Jerrie's face, leaving it deathly white, while Tom and Dick knocked their heads together in their efforts to get her a glass of water, which they succeeded in spilling into her lap.

'It is nothing,' Jerrie said, recovering herself quickly. 'I have been in the hot sun a good deal to-day, and perhaps that affected me and made me a little faint. 'It has passed now;' and she looked up as brightly as ever.

'It's that confounded washing!' Tom thought; but Jerrie could have told him differently.

As Marian had talked to her of the house in Wiesbaden and the picture on the wall—of the peasant girl knitting in the sunshine—she had seen, as by revelation, through a rift in the clouds which separated her from the past—the picture on the wall, in its pretty Florentine frame, and knew that it resembled the pale, sweet face which came to her so often and was so real to her. Was it her old home Marian was describing? Had she lived there once, when the house consisted of only two or three rooms? and was that a picture of her mother, left there she knew not how or why? These were the thoughts crowding each other so fast in her brain when the faintness and pallor crept over her and the objects about her began to seem unreal. But the cold water revived her, and she was soon herself again, listening while Marian talked of heat and sun-strokes, with an evident forgetfulness of the peasant girl knitting in the sunshine; but Jerrie soon recurred to the subject and asked, rather abruptly: 'Was there a stove in that house—a tall, white stove, in a corner of one of the old rooms—say the kitchen—and a high-backed settee?'

Marian stared at her a moment in surprise, and then replied:

'Oh, I know what you mean—those unwieldy things in which they sometimes put the wood from the hall. No; there was nothing of that kind, though there was an old settee by the kitchen fire-place, but not a tall stove. Mr. Carter had modernized the house, and set up a real Yankee stove—Stewart's, I think they called it.'

'Was the picture in the kitchen?' Jerrie asked next.

'No,' Marian replied, 'it was in a little, low apartment which must once have been the best room.'

'And was there no theory with regard to it! It seems strange that any one should leave it there if he cared for it,' Jerrie said.

'Yes, it does,' Marian replied; 'but all Mr. Carter knew was that the people of whom he bought the house said the portrait was there when they took possession, and that it had been left to apply on the back rent; also that the original was dead. He (Mr. Carter) had bought the picture with the house, and offered to take it down, but I would not let him. It was such a sweet, sunny, happy face that it did me good to look at it, and wonder who the young girl was, and if her life were ever linked with that of the stranger watching her.'

Again the faintness came upon Jerrie, for she could see so plainly on the sombre wall the picture of the sweet-faced girl, with the long stocking in her lap—a very long stocking she felt sure it was, but dared not ask, lest they should think her question a strange one. Of the stranger in the back yard watching the young girl she had no recollection, but her heart beat wildly as she thought:

'Was that Mr. Arthur, and was the young girl Gretchen?'

How fast the lines touching her past had widened about her since she first saw the likeness in the mirror, and her confused memories of the past began to take shape and assume a tangible form.

'I will find that house, and that picture, and that Mr. Carter, and the people who lived there before him,' she said to herself; and then again, addressing Marian, she asked:

'What was the street, and the number of that house?'

Marian told her the street, but could not remember the number, while Tom said, laughingly:

'Why, Jerrie, what makes you so much interested in an old German house? Do you expect to go there and live in it?'

'Yes,' Jerrie replied, in the same light tone. 'I am going to Germany sometime—going to Wiesbaden, and I mean to find that house and the picture which Miss Raymond says I am so much like; then I shall know how I look to others. You remember the couplet:

'"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us, To see ourselfs as others see us!"

'Look in the glass there, the best one you can find, and you'll see yourself as others see you,' Dick said, gallantly.

Before Jerrie could reply, a servant appeared on the piazza, saying there was some one at the telephone asking for Mr. Peterkin.

It proved to be Billy's father, who was in the village, and had received a telegram from Springfield concerning a lawsuit which was pending between himself and a rival firm, which claimed that he had infringed upon their patents. Before replying to the telegram he wished to confer with his son, who was to come at once to the hotel, and, if necessary, go to Springfield that night.

'B-by Jove,' Billy said, as he returned to the piazza and explained the matter, 'it's t-t-too bad that I must g-go, when I'm enjoying m-myself t-t-tip-top. I wish that lawsuit was in Gu-Guinea.'

Then turning to Ann Eliza he asked how she would get home if he did nut return.

'Oh, don't trouble about me. I can take care of myself,' Ann Eliza said, with a bounce up in her chair, which set every loose hair of her frowzy head to flying.

'M-m-maybe they'll send the ca-carriage,' Billy went on, 'and if they do-don't, m-may be you can g-go with T-Tom as far as his house, and then you wo-wont be afraid.'

Tom could have killed the little man for having thus made it impossible for him not to see his sister safely home. He had fully intended to forestall Dick, and go with Jerrie if Harold did not come, for though she had refused him, he wished to keep her as a friend, hoping that in time she might be led to reconsider. He liked to hear her voice—to look into her face—to be near her, and the walk in the moonlight, with her upon his arm, had been something very pleasant to contemplate, and now it was snatched from him by Billy's ill-advised speech, and old Peterkin's red-haired daughter thrust upon him. It was rather hard, and Tom's face was very gloomy and dark for the remainder of the evening, while they sat upon the piazza and laughed, and talked, and said the little nothings so pleasant to the young and so meaningless to the old who have forgotten their youth.

Jerrie was the first to speak of going. She had hoped that Harold might possibly come for her, but as the time passed on, and he did not appear, she knew he was not coming, and at last arose to say good-night to Nina, while Dick hastened forward and announced his intention to accompany her.

'No, Dick, no; please don't,' she said. 'I am not a bit afraid, and I would rather you did not go.'

But Dick was persistent.

'You know you accepted my services this morning,' he said, and his face, as he went down the steps with Jerrie on his arm, wore a very different expression from that of poor Tom, who, with Ann Eliza coming about to his elbow, stalked moodily along the road, scarcely hearing and not always replying to the commonplace remarks of his companion, who had never been so happy in her life, because never before had she been out alone in the evening with Tom Tracy as her escort.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

OUT IN THE STORM.

For half an hour or more before the young people left the house a dark mass of clouds had been rolling up from the west, and by the time that they were out of the grounds and on the highway, the moonlight was wholly obscured and the sky was overcast as with a pall, while frequent groans of thunder and flashes of lightning in the distance told of the fast coming storm.

'Oh, I am so afraid of thunder! Aren't you?' Ann Eliza cried, in terror, as she clung closer to Tom, who, beside her, seemed a very giant, and who did not reply until there came a gleam of lightning which showed him the white face and the loose hair blowing out from under his companion's hat.

There was a little shriek of fear and a smothered cry. 'Oh, Tom, aren't you a bit afraid?'

And then the giant answered the trembling little girl whom he would like to have shaken off, she clung so closely to him 'Thunder and lightning, no!' I'm not afraid of anything except getting wet; and if you are, you'd better run before the whole thing is upon us; the sky is blacker than midnight now. I never saw a storm come on so fast. Can you run?'

'Yes—some,' Ann Eliza gasped out; 'only my boots are so tight and new, and the heels are so high. Do you think we shall be struck?'

This as a peal of thunder louder than any which had preceded it rolled over their heads, making Ann Eliza clutch Tom's arm in nervous terror which was not feigned.

'Struck? No. But don't screech and hang on to me so. We can never get along if you do,' Tom growled; and, taking her by the wrist, he dragged rather than led her through the woods where the great rain-drops were beginning to fall so fast as the two showers—one from the west and one from the south—approached each other, until at last they met overhead, and then commenced a wild and fierce battle of the elements, the southern storm and the western storm each seemingly trying to outdo the other and come off conqueror.

As the thunder and lightning and rain increased, Tom went on faster and faster, forgetting that the slip of a girl, who scarcely came to his shoulders, could not take so long strides as a great, hulking fellow like himself.

'Oh, Tom, Tom—please not so fast. I can't keep up, my heart beats so fast and my boots hurt me so,' came in a faint, sobbing protest more than once from the panting girl at his side; but he only answered:

'You must keep up, or we shall be soaked through and through. I never knew it rain so fast. Take off your boots, if they hurt you. You've no business to wear such small ones.'

He had heard from Maude that Ann Eliza was very proud of her feet, and always wore boots too small for them, and he experienced a savage satisfaction in knowing that she was paying for her foolishness. This was not very kind in Tom, but he was not a kind-hearted man, and he held the whole Peterkin tribe, as he called them, in such contempt that he would scarcely have cared if the tired little feet, boots and all, had dropped off, provided it did not add to his discomfort. They were out of the woods and park by this time, and had struck into a field as a shorter route to Le Bateau. But the way was rough and stony, and Tom had stumbled himself two or three times and almost fallen, when a sharp, loud cry from Ann Eliza smote his ear, and he felt that she was sinking to the ground.

His first impulse was to drag her on, but that would have been too brutal, and stopping short he asked what was the matter.

'Oh, I don't know. I guess I've sprained my ankle. It turned right over on a big stone, you went so fast, and hurts me awfully. I can't walk another step. Oh, what shall we do, and am I going to die?'

'Die? No!' Tom answered, gloomily. 'But we are in an awful muss, and I don't know what to do. Here it is raining great guns, and I am wet to my skin, and you can't walk, you say. What in thunder shall we do?'

Ann Eliza was sobbing piteously, and when a glare of lightning lighted up the whole heavens, Tom caught a glimpse of her face which was white as marble, and distorted with pain, and this decided him. He had thought to leave her in the darkness and rain, while he went for assistance either to the Park House or Le Bateau; but the sight of her utter helplessness awoke in him a spark of pity, and bending over her he said, very gently for him:

'Annie,'—this was the name by which he used to call her when they were children together, and he thought Ann Eliza too long—'Annie, I shall have to carry you in my arms; there is no other way. It is not very far to your home. Come!' and stooping low over the prostrate form he lifted her very carefully and holding her in a position the least painful for her, began again to battle with the storm, walking more carefully now and groping his way through the stony field lest he should stumble and fall and sprain him own ankle, perhaps.

'This is a jolly go,' he said to himself, as he went on; and then he thought of Dick and Jerrie, and wondered how they were getting through the storm, and if she had sprained her ankle and Dick was carrying her in his arms.

'He will sweat some, if he is, for Jerrie is twice as heavy as Peterkin's daughter;' and at the very idea Tom laughed out loud, thinking that he should greatly prefer to have Jerrie's strength and weight in his arms to his light, slim, little girl, who neither spoke nor moved until he laughed, and then there came in smothered tones from the region of his vest:

'Oh, Tom, how can you laugh? Do you think it such fun?'

'Fun! Thunder! Anything but fun!' was his gruff reply, as he went on more rapidly now, for they were in the grounds of Le Bateau, and the lights from the house were distinctly visible at no great distance away. 'We are here at last. Thank the Lord.' he said, as he went up the steps and pulled sharply at the bell.

'Let me down. I can stand on one foot,' Ann Eliza said; and nothing loth Tom put her down, a most forlorn and dilapidated piece of humanity as she stood leaning against him with the light of the piazza lamp falling full upon her.

Her little French boots, which had partly done the mischief, were spoiled, and the heel of one of them had been nearly wrenched off when she stumbled over the stone. Her India muslin, with its sash, and ribbons, and streamers, was torn in places and bedraggled with mud. She had lost her hat in the woods, and the wind and the rain had held high carnival in her loosely-arranged hair, whose color Tom so detested, and which streamed down her back in many little wet tags, giving her the look of a drowned rat after it has been tortured in a trap.

Old Peterkin was reading his evening paper when Tom's sharp summons sounded through the house, making him jump from the chair, as he exclaimed:

'Jiminy hoe-cakes! Who can that be in this storm?'

He had seen Billy off in the train, and had returned home just as the rain began to fall. Naturally both he and his wife had felt some anxiety on Ann Eliza's account, but had concluded that if the storm continued she would remain at Grassy Spring, and if it cleared in time they would send the carriage for her. So neither thought of her when the loud ring came, startling them both so much. It was Peterkin himself who went to the door, gorgeous in a crimson satin dressing gown which came to his feet, but which no amount of pulling would make meet together over his ponderous stomach. An oriental smoking cap was on his head, the big tassel hanging almost in his eyes, and a half-burned cigar between his fingers.

'Good George of Uxbridge!' he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon Tom, from whose soaked hat the water was dripping, and upon Ann Eliza leaning against him, her pale face quivering with pain, and her eyes full of tears. 'George of Uxbridge! What's up? What ails the girl!'

At sight of her father Ann Eliza began to cry, while Tom said:

'She has sprained her ankle and I had to bring her home. She cannot step.'

'Jerusalem hoe-cakes! Spraint her ankle! Can't step! You bring her home! Heavens and earth! Here, May Jane, come lively! Here's a nice how-dy-do! Ann Liza's broke her laig, and Tom Tracy's brung her home!'

As Peterkin talked, he was taking his daughter in his arms and bringing her into the hall, hitting her lame foot against the door, and eliciting from her a cry of pain.

'Oh, father; Oh-h!—it does hurt so. Put me somewhere quick, and take off my boot. I believe I am going to die!'

She was dripping wet, and little puddles of water trailed along the carpet as Peterkin carried her into the sitting room, where he was about to lay her down upon the delicate satin couch, when his wife's housewifely instincts were roused, and she exclaimed:

'No, father. No, not there, when she's so wet, and water spots that satin so dreadfully.'

'What in thunder shall I do with her? Hold her all night?' Peterkin demanded, while Tom deliberately picked up the costly Turkey hearth rug, and throwing it across the couch, said:

'Put her on that.' So Peterkin deposited her upon the rug, hitting her foot again, and sending her off in a dead faint.

'Oh, she's dead! she's dead! What shall we do?' Mrs. Peterkin cried, wringing her hands, and walking about excitedly.

'Do?' Peterkin yelled. 'Hold your yawp, and stop floppin' round like a hen with her head cut off! She ain't dead. She's fainted. Bring some camfire, or alcohol, or hartshorn, or Pond's Extract, or something for her to smell.'

'Yes, yes; but where are they?' Mrs. Peterkin moaned, still flopping around, as her husband had expressed it, while Tom rang the bell and summoned the maid, to whom he gave directions.

'Bring some camphor or hartshorn,' he said. 'Miss Peterkin has fainted, and get off the boot as soon as possible. Don't you see how her foot is swelling?'

This to Peterkin, who made a dive at the boot, which resisted all his efforts, even after it was unbuttoned. The leather, which was soaked through, had shrunk so that it was impossible to remove the boot without cutting it away, and this they commenced to do.

Ann Eliza had recovered her consciousness by this time, and although the pain was terrible she bore it heroically, as piece after piece of the boot was removed, together with the silk stocking which left her poor little swollen foot exposed and bare.

'By Jove, she's plucky!' Tom thought, as he watched the operation and saw the great drops of sweat on Ann Eliza's forehead and her efforts to quiet her mother, pretending that it did not hurt so very much. 'Yes, she's plucky,' and for the first time in his life Tom was conscious of a feeling of something like respect for Peterkin's red-haired daughter. 'She has a small foot, too; the smallest I ever saw on a woman. I do believe she wears twos,' he thought, while something about the little white foot made him think of poor Jack's dead feet, laid under the grass years ago.

In this softened frame of mind he at last said good-night, although pressed by Peterkin to stay and dry himself, or at least take a drink as a preventive against cold, but Tom declined both, saying a hot bath would set him all right. 'Good-bye, Annie. I'm awful sorry for the sprain,' he said, offering her his hand; and as she took it in hers, noticing about the wrist prints of his fingers which had grasped it so tightly and held it so firmly as he dragged her along over stumps, and bogs, and stones, until she sank at his feet, 'I guess I was a brute to race her like that,' he said to himself, as he went out into the darkness and started for home. 'But I didn't want to go with her. I wanted to be with Jerrie, who, I have no doubt, went straight along, without ever thinking of spraining her ankle, as Ann Eliza did. Poor little foot! How swollen, though, it was when they got that boot off; but she bore it like a major! Pity she has such all-fired red hair, and piles it up like a haystack on the top of her head, with every hair looking six ways for Sunday.'

At this point in his soliloquy Tom reached home, and was soon luxuriating in a hot bath, which removed all traces of the soaking he had received. That night he dreamed of Ann Eliza, and how light she was in his arms, and how patient through it all, and that the magnificent rooms at Le Bateau were all frescoed with diamonds and the floors inlaid with gold. Then the nature of his dream changed, and it was Jerry he was carrying in his arms, bending under her weight until his back was nearly broken. But he did not heed it in the least, and when he bent to kiss the face lying upon his bosom, where Ann Eliza had lain, he awoke suddenly to find that it was morning and that the sun was shining brightly into his room.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

UNDER THE PINES WITH DICK.

Jerrie was soaked through, but she did not sprain her ankle as Ann Eliza had done. And yet, had she been given her choice, rather than inflict the pain she did inflict upon poor Dick, she would have chosen the former unhesitatingly, and felt herself happy in doing it. Like Tom and Ann Eliza, she and Dick had run when they saw how fast the storm was coming, but it was of no use, for by the time they entered the park, the shortest route to the cottage, the rain came down in torrents, and drenched them to the skin in a few moments. Jerrie's hat was wrenched off, as Ann Eliza's had been by the wind, which tossed her long golden hair in a most fantastic fashion. But Dick put his hat upon her head, and would have given her his coat had she allowed it.

'No, Dick,' she said, laughingly, as she saw him about to divest himself of it. 'Keep your coat. I am wet enough without that. But what an awful storm, and how dark it grows. We shall break our necks stumbling along at this rate.'

Just then a broad glare of lightning illuminated the darkness, and showed Dick the four pines close at hand. He knew the place well, for, with the Tracy children, he had often played there when a boy, and knew that the thick bushes would afford them some protection from the storm.

'By Jove, we are in luck!' he said. 'Here's the pine room, as we used to call it when you played you were Marie Antoinette, and had your head cut off. I can remember just how I felt when your white sun-bonnet, with Mrs. Crawford's false hair pinned it in, dropped into the basket, and how awful it seemed when you played dead so long that we almost thought you were; and when you came to light, the way you imitated the cries of a French mob, I would have sworn there were a hundred voices instead of one yelling: "Down with the nobility!" You were a wonderful actress, Jerrie; and it is a marvel you have not gone upon the stage.'

While he talked he was groping for the bench under the pines, where they sat down, Dick seating himself upon the parasol, which Jerrie had left there that morning after her interview with Tom.

'Hallo! what's this?' he said, drawing the parasol from under him. 'An umbrella, as I live! We are in luck. What good fairy do you suppose left it here for us?'

Jerrie could not tell him that she had left it there, and she said nothing; while he opened and held it so that every drop of rain which slipped from it fell upon her neck and trickled down her back. 'Great Caesar! that was a roarer!' Dick said, as the peal of thunder which had so frightened Ann Eliza burst over their heads, and, echoing through the woods, went bellowing off in the direction of the river, 'That's a stunner! but I rather like it, and like being here, too, with you, if you don't mind it. I've wanted a chance to speak to you alone, ever since—well, ever since this morning, when I saw you in that bewildering costume that showed your feet and your arms so—you know, with that thing like a napkin pinned up in front, and that jimcrack on your head, and the red stockings—and—and—'

Dick was getting bewildered and did not quite know what he was saying, so he stopped and waited for Jerrie to reply. But Jerrie did not speak, because of the sudden alarm which possessed her. She could not see Dick's face, but in his voice she had recognized a tone heard in Tom's that morning when she sat with him under pines as she was sitting now with Dick and he had asked her to be his wife. Something told her that Dick was feeling for her hands, which she resolutely put behind her out of his way, and as he could not find them, he wound his arm around her and held her fast, while he told her how much he loved her and wanted her for his wife.

'I believe I have loved you,' he said, 'ever since the day I first saw you at the inquest, and you flew so like a little cat at Peterkin when he attacked Harold. I used to be awfully jealous of Hal, for fear he would find in you more than a sister, but that was before he and Maude got so thick together. I guess that's a sure thing, and it makes me bold to tell you what I have. Why are you so silent Jerrie? Don't you love me a little? That is all I ask at first, for I know I can make you love me a great deal in time. I will be so kind and true to you. Jerrie, and father, and mother, and Nina will be so glad. Speak to me, Jerrie, and say you will try to love me, if you do not now.'

As he talked he had drawn the girl closer to him, where she sat rigid as a stone, wholly unmindful of the little puddles of water—and they were puddles now—running down her back, for Dick had tilted the parasol in such a manner that one of the points rested upon the nape of her neck. But she did not know it, or think of any thing except the pain she must inflict upon the young man wooing her so differently from what Tom Tracy had done. No hint had Dick given of the honor he was conferring upon her, or of his own and his family's superiority to her family and herself. All the honor and favor to be conferred were on her side; all the love and humility on his, and for one brief moment the wild wish flashed upon her:

'Oh, if I could love him as a wife ought, I might he so happy, for he is all that is noble and good and true.'

But this was while she was smarting under the few words he had said of Harold and Maude. He, too, believed it a settled thing between the two—everybody believed it—and why should she waste her love upon one who did not care for her as she did for him? Why not encourage a love for Dick, who stood next in her heart to Harold? Questioning herself thus until there flushed upon her the recollection of Harold's voice as it had spoken to her that morning, and the look in his eyes when they rested upon her, as he said good-bye, lingering a moment as if loth to leave her, and then Dick's chance, if he had ever had any, was gone!

'I do not believe it,' she said to herself, and then, turning her face to Dick she cried: 'Oh, Dick, I am so sorry you have said this to me; sorry that you love me—in this way—for I can't—I can't—. I do love you as a friend, a brother, next to Harold, but I cannot be your wife. I cannot.'

For a moment there was perfect silence in the darkness, and then a lurid flame of lightning showed the two faces—that of the man pale as ashes, with a look of bitter pain upon it, and that of the woman, whiter than the man's and bathed in upon which fell almost as fast as the rain drops were falling tears, the pines.

Then Dick spoke, but his voice sounded strange and unnatural and a great ways off:

'If I wait a long, long time—say a year, or two, or three—do you think you could learn to love me just a little? I will not ask for much; only, Jerrie, I do hunger so for you that without you life would seem a blank.'

'No, Dick; not if you waited twenty years. I must still answer no. I cannot love you as your wife should love you, and as some good, sweet girl will one day love you when you have forgotten me.'

This is what Jerrie said to him, with much more, until he knew she was in earnest and felt as if his heart were breaking.

'I shall never forget you, Jerrie,' he said, 'or cease to hope that you will change your mind, unless—' and here he started so suddenly that the wet parasol, down which streams of water were still coursing their way to Jerrie's back, dropped from his hand and rolled off upon the bed of fine needles at his feet, just where it had been in the morning when Tom was there instead of himself—'unless there is some one between us, some other man whom you love. I will not ask you the question, but I believe I could bear it better if I knew it was because your love was already given to another, and not because of anything in me.'

For a moment Jerrie was silent; then suddenly facing Dick, she laid her hand on his and said:

'I can trust you, I am sure of that; there is some one between us—some one whom I love. If I had never seen him, Dick, never known that he lived—and if I had known you just as I do, I might not have answered just as I have. I am very sorry.'

Dick did not ask her who his rival was, nor did Harold come to his mind, so sure was he that an engagement existed between him and Maude. Probably it was some one whom she had met while away at school; and if so, Nina would know, and he would sound her cautiously, but never let her know, if he could help it, the heart-wound he had received.

Poor Dick! every nerve was quivering with pain and disappointment when at last, as the rain began to cease, he rose at Jerrie's suggestion, and offering her his arm, walked silently and sadly with her to the door of the cottage. Here for a moment they stood side by side and hand in hand, until Jerrie said:

'Dick, your friendship has been very dear to me. I do not want to lose it.'

'Nor shall you,' he answered; and winding his arms around her, he kissed her lips, saying as he did so:

'That is the seal of our eternal friendship. The man you love would not grudge me that one kiss, but perhaps you'd better tell him. Good-bye, and God bless you. When I see you again I shall try to be the same Dick you have always known.'

For a few moments Jerrie stood listening to the sound of his footsteps as he went splashing through the wet grass and puddles of water; then, kissing her hands to him, she whispered:

'Poor Dick! it would not be difficult to love you if I had never known Harold.'

Opening the door softly, she found, as she had expected, that both her grandmother and Harold had retired; and taking the lamp from the table where it had been left for her, she stole quietly up to her room and crept shivering into bed, more wretched than she had ever been before in her life.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

AT LE BATEAU.

Harold got his own breakfast the next morning, and was off for his work just as the sun looked into the windows of the room where Jerrie lay in a deep slumber. She had been awake a long time the previous night, thinking over the incidents of a day which had been the most eventful one of her life, but had fallen asleep at last, and dreamed that she had found the low room far away in Wiesbaden, with the wall adorned with the picture of a young girl knitting in the sunshine, and the stranger watching her from a distance.

It was late when she awoke, and Peterkin's clock was striking eight when she went down to the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Crawford sewing, and a most dainty breakfast waiting for her on a little round table near an open window shaded with the hop-vines. There was a fresh egg for her, with English buns, and strawberries and cream, and chocolate served in a pretty cup which she had never seen before, while near her plate was lying a bunch of roses, and on them a strip of paper, on which Harold had written:

"The top of the mornin' to ye, Jerrie. I'd like to stay and see you, but if I work very hard to-day, I hope to finish the job on Monday and get my fifteen dollars. That's a pile of money to earn in three days, isn't it? I hope you enjoyed the garden-party. If I had not been so awfully tired I should have gone for you. Grandma will tell you that I went to bed and to sleep before that shower came up, so I knew nothing of it. I wonder you got home; but of course Dick came with you, or Billy, or possibly Tom. I hear you entertained all three of them at the washtub! Pretty good for the first day home! Good-bye till to-night. I only live till then, as they say in novels.

"HAROLD."

This note, every line of which was full of affection and thoughtfulness for her, was worth more to Jerrie than the chocolate, or the bun, or the pretty cup and saucer which Harold had bought for her the night before, going to the village, a mile out of his way, on purpose to get them and surprise her. This, Mrs. Crawford told her, as she eat eating her breakfast, which she had to force down because of the lump in her throat and the tears which came so fast as she listened.

'You see,' Mrs. Crawford began, 'Mr. Allen paid Harold two or three dollars, and so he came home through the village, and bought the eggs, and the buns, and the chocolate, which he knew you liked, and the cup and saucer at Grady's. He has had it on his mind a long time to get it for you, but there were so many other things to pay for. Don't you think it is pretty?'

'Yes, lovely!' Jerrie replied, taking up the delicate bit of china, through which the light shone so clearly. 'It is very pretty; but I wish he had not bought it for me,' and Jerrie wiped the hot tears from both her eyes, as Mrs. Crawford continued:

'Oh, he wanted to. He is never happier than when doing something which he thinks pleases you or me. Harold is the most unselfish boy I ever knew; and I never saw him give way, or heard him complain that his lot was hard but once, and that was this summer, when he was building the room, and had to dismiss the man because he had no money to pay him. That left it all for him to do, and he was already so tired and overworked; and then Tom Tracy was always making fun of the addition, and saying it made the cottage look like a pig-sty with a steeple to it, and that you would think so too; and if it were his he'd tear the old hut down and start anew. Peterkin, too, made remarks about its being out of proportion to the rest of the house, and wondered where Harold got the money, and why he didn't do this and that, but supposed he couldn't afford it, adding that "beggars couldn't be choosers." When Harold heard all that, he was tired, and nervous, and sick, and discouraged, and his hands were blistered and bruised with hard work. His head was aching, and he just put it on that table, where you are sitting, and cried like a baby. When I tried to comfort him, he said, "It isn't the hard work, grandmother; I don't mind that in the least; neither do I care for what they say, or should not, if there was not some truth in it; things are out of proportion, and the new room makes the rest of the cottage look lower than ever, and I'd like so much to have everything right for Jerrie, who would not shame the Queen's palace. I wish, for her sake, that I had money, and could make her home what it ought to be. I do not want her to feel homesick, or long for something better, when she comes back to us."'

Jerrie was crying outright now; but Mrs. Crawford, who was a little deaf and did not hear her, went on:

'If you were a hundred times his sister he could not love you more than he does, or wish to make you happier. He would have gone for you last night, only he was so tired, and I persuaded him to go to bed. I knew somebody would come home with you, Dick, wasn't it? I thought I heard his voice.'

'Yes, it was Dick,' Jerrie answered, very low, returning again to her breakfast, while her grandmother rambled on:

'Harold slept so soundly that he never heard the storm or knew there was one till this morning. Lucky you didn't start home till it was over. You'd have been wet to the skin.'

Jerrie made no answer, for she could not tell of that interview under the pines, or that she had been wet to the skin, and felt chilly even now from the effects of it. It seemed that Mrs. Crawford would never tire talking of Harold, for she continued:

'He was up this morning about daylight, I do believe, and had his own breakfast eaten and that table laid for you when I came down. He wanted to see you before he went, and know if you were pleased; but I told him you were probably asleep, as it was late when you came in, and so he wrote something for you, and went whistling off as merrily as if he had been in his carriage, instead of on foot in his working-dress.'

'And he shall have his carriage, too, some day, and a pair of the finest horses the country affords, and you shall ride beside him, in a satin gown and India shawl. You'll see!' Jerrie said, impetuously, as she arose from the table and began to clear away the dishes.

The spell was upon her strongly now, and as her grandmother talked, the objects around her gradually faded away; the cottage, so out of proportion, and so humble in all its surroundings, was gone, and in its place a house, fair to look upon, fair as Tracy Park and much like it, and Harold was the master, looking a very prince, instead of the tired, shabbily dressed man he was now.

'And I shall be there, too,' Jerrie whispered, or rather nodded to herself. 'I know I shall, and I do not believe one word of the Maude affair, and never will until he tells me himself, or she; and then—well, then, I will be glad for them, until I come to be really glad myself.'

She was moving rapidly around the kitchen, for there was a great deal to be done—the Saturday's work and all the clothes to be ironed, and then she meant to get up some little surprise for Harold, to show him that she appreciated his thoughtfulness for her.

About half-past ten a servant from Le Bateau brought her a note from Ann Eliza, who wrote as follows.

'Dear Jerrie:—Have pity on a poor cripple, and come as soon as you can and see her. I sprained my ankle last night in that awful storm, and Tom had to bring me home in his arms. Think of it, and what my feelings must have been. I am hardly over it yet—the queer feelings I mean—for, of course, my ankle is dreadful, and so swollen, and pains me so that I cannot step, but must stay in my room all day. So come as soon as possible. You have never seen the inside of our house, or my rooms. Come to lunch, please. We will have it up here. Good-bye.

'From your loving friend,

'ANN ELIZA.

'P.S.—I wonder if Tom will inquire for me.'

'Tell her I will be there by lunch time,' Jerrie said to the man, while to her grandmother she continued: 'The baking and cleaning are all done, and I can finish the ironing when I get back; it will be cooler then, and I do want to see the inside of that show-house which Harold says cost a hundred thousand dollars. Pity somebody besides the Peterkins did not live there.'

And so, about twelve o'clock Jerrie walked up to the grand house of gray stone, which, with its turrets, and towers, and immense arch over the carriage drive in front of a side door, looked like some old feudal castle, and flaunted upon its walls the money it had cost. Even the loud bell which echoed through the hall like a town clock told of wealth and show, as did the colored man who answered the summons, and bowing low to Jerrie, held out a silver tray for her card.

'Nonsense, Leo!' Jerrie said, laughingly, for she had known the negro all her life and played with him, too, at times, when they both went to the district school. 'I have no card with me. Miss Ann Eliza has invited me to lunch, and I have come. Tell her I am here.'

With another profound bow, Leo waved Jerrie into the reception-room, and then started to deliver her message.

Seated upon one of the carved chairs, Jerrie looked about her curiously, with a feeling that the half had not been told her, everything was so much more gorgeous and magnificent than she had supposed. But what impressed and at the same time oppressed her most was the height of the walls from the richly inlaid floor to the gayly decorated ceiling overhead. It made her neck ache staring up fourteen feet and a half to the costly center ornament from which the heavy chandelier depended. All the rooms of the old house had been low, and when Peterkin built the new one, he made ample amends.

"I mean to lick the crowd," he said; and a man was sent to Collingwood, and Grassy Spring, and Brier Hill, and lastly to Tracy Park, to take the height of the lower rooms. Those at Tracy Park were found to be the highest, and measured just twelve feet, so Peterkin's orders were to "run 'em up—run 'em up fourteen feet, for I swan I'll get ahead of 'em."

So they were run up fourteen feet, and by some mistake, half a foot higher, looking when finished so cold and cheerless and bare that the ambitious man ransacked New York and Boston and even sent to London for ornaments for his walls. Books were bought by the square yard, pictures by the wholesale, mirrors by the dozen, with bronzes and brackets and sconces and tapestry and banners and screens and clocks and cabinets and statuary, with every kind of furniture imaginable, from the costliest rugs and carpets to the most exquisite inlaid tables to be found in Florence or Venice. For Peterkin sent there for them by a gentleman to whom he said:

'Git the best there is if it costs a fortune. I'm bound to lick the crowd.'

This was his favorite expression; and when his house was done, and he stood, his broad, white shirt-front studded with diamonds and his coat thrown back to show them, surveying his possessions, he felt that he 'had licked the crowd.'

Jerrie felt so, too, as she followed the elegant Leo up the stairs and through the upper hall—handsomer, if possible than the lower one—to the pretty room where Ann Eliza lay, or rather reclined, with her lame foot on a cushion and her well one incased in a white embroidered silk stocking and blue satin slipper. She was dressed in a delicate blue satin wrapper, trimmed with swan's-down, and there were diamonds in her ears and on the little white hands which she stretched toward Jerrie as she came in.

'Oh, Jerrie,' she said, 'I am so glad to see you, for it is awfully lonesome here; and if one can be homesick at home, I am. I miss the girls and the lessons and the rules at Vassar; much as I hated them when I was there; and just before you came in I wanted to cry. I guess my rooms are too big and have too much in them; any way, I have the feeling that I am visiting, and everything is strange and new. I do believe I liked the old room better, with its matting on the floor and the little mirror with the peacock feathers ornamenting the top, and that painted plaster image of Samuel on the mantel. It is very ungrateful in me, I know, when father has done it mostly to please me. Do you believe—he has hunted me up a maid; Doris is her name; and what I am ever to do with her, or she with me, I am sure I don't know. Do you?'

Jerrie did not know either, but suggested that she might read to her while she was confined to her room. 'Yes, she might, perhaps, do that, if she can read,' Ann Eliza said. 'She certainly has pretentions enough about her to have written several treatises on scientific subjects. She was a year with Lady Augusta Hardy, in Ireland. Don't you remember the grand wedding father and mother attended in Allington two or three years ago, when Augusta Browne was married to an Irish lord, who had been bought by her money?—for of course he did not care much for her. Well, Doris went out with her as maid, and acts as if she, too, had married a peer. She came last night, and mamma and I are already as afraid of her as we can be, she is so fine and airy. She insisted upon dressing me this morning, and I felt all the while as if she were thinking how red and ugly my hair is, or counting the freckles on my face, and contrasting me with 'my Lady Augusta,' as she calls her. I wonder if she ever saw my lady's mother, Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, who told me once that I had a very petty figger, but she presumed it would envelope as I grew older. But then people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones,' and Ann Eliza colored a little as she made this reference to her own father and mother, whose language was not much more correct than Mrs. Rossiter-Browne's.

For one brought up as she had been, Ann Eliza was a rather sensible girl, and although she attached a great deal of importance to money, she knew it was not everything, and that with her father's millions there was still a wide difference between him and the men to whose society he aspired; and knew, too, that although Jerrie had not a penny in the world, she was greatly her superior, and so considered by the world at large. She was very fond of Jerrie, who had often helped her with her lessons, and stood between her and the ridicule of her companions, and was never happier than when in her society. So now she made her bring an ottoman close beside her, and held her hand while she narrated in detail the events of the previous night, dwelling at length upon the fact that Tom had carried her in his arms, and wondering if he would call to inquire after her. Jerrie thought he would; and, as if in answer to the thought, Doris almost immediately appeared with his card. She was very fine and very smart, and Jerrie herself felt awed by her dignity and manner as she delivered her message. 'The gentleman sends his compliments, and would like to know how you are this morning.'

'Jerrie, it's Tom! he has come!' Ann Eliza said, with joy in her voice. 'Surely I can receive him here, for this is my parlor.'

Jerrie thought she might, but the toss of the fine maid's head showed that she thought differently, as she left the room with her mistress' message.

'Thunderation! I didn't want to see her. It's enough to have to call,' was Tom's mental comment, when Doris told him he was to walk up stairs.

Indeed, he would not have come at all if Maude, to whom he related his adventure, had not insisted that he must.

'You needn't see her, of course; but you must go and inquire how she is. According to your own statement you are to blame for her mishap; you dragged her along too fast.

Tom knew there was some truth in this, and so he went the more willingly; and, sending up his card, stood near the open door, ready to leave the moment Leo came down with the message he had received from Doris.

'I shall be cheek by jowl with these Peterkins, if I don't look out,' he thought, as he ascended the stairs to the hall, where Doris stood waiting to show him her mistress' room.

'What! Jerry! You here?' he exclaimed, his face clearing, and the whole aspect of matters changing at once, as she arose to meet him.

With Jerrie there the place seemed different, and he did not feel as if he were lowering himself, as he sat in the luxuriously furnished room, and joined in the dainty lunch which was brought up and served from Dresden china, and linen and cut glass, and was as delicate and dainty in its way as anything he had ever found at the Brunswick or Delmonico's. Mrs. Peterkin prided herself upon her cuisine, which she always superintended, and as Peterkin was something of an epicure and gourmand, the table was always supplied with every possible delicacy.

Tom enjoyed it all, and praised the chocolate, and the broiled chicken, and the jellies, and thought Ann Eliza not so very bad-looking in her blue satin wrapper, with the swan's-down trimmings, and made himself generally agreeable. Maude was better, he said, and could talk a little, and he asked Jerrie to go home with him and see her. But Jerrie declined.

'I have a great deal of work to do yet,' she said, 'I must iron all those clothes you saw upon the line yesterday, and so I must be going.'

Tom frowned at the mention of the clothes which Jerrie had washed; while Ann Eliza insisted that she should stay until the dog-cart, which had been sent to the station for Billy, came back, when Lewis would take her home, as it was too warm to walk. Jerrie did not mind the walk, but she felt morally sure that Tom meant to accompany her, and greatly preferred the dog-cart and Lewis to another tete-a-tete with him, for he did not act at all like a discarded lover, but rather as one who still hoped he had a chance. So she signified her intention to wait for the dog-cart, which soon came, with Billy in it, anxious when he heard of his sister's accident, delighted when he found Jerrie there, and persistent in saying that he and not Lewis would take her home.

'Well, if you will, you will,' she said, laughingly; and bidding Ann Eliza good-bye, and telling Tom to give her love to Maude and say to her that she did not believe she should be at the park that day, she had so much to do, she was soon in the dog-cart with Billy, whose face was radiant as he gathered up the reins and started down the turnpike, driving at what Jerrie thought a very slow pace, as she was anxious to get home.

Something of Billy's thoughts must have communicated itself to Jerrie, for she became nervous and ill at ease and talked rapidly of things in which she had not the slightest interest.

'What of the lawsuit?' she asked. 'Are you likely to settle it?'

'N-no,' Billy answered, hurriedly. 'It will h-have to co-come into co-court in a f-few days, and I am aw-awful sorry. I wa-wanted father to p-pay what they demanded, but he won't. Hal is subpoenaed on the other side, as he was in our office, and is supposed to know something about it; b-but I ho-hope he won't da-damage us m-much, as father would n-never forgive him if he went against us.'

'But he must tell the truth, no matter who is damaged,' Jerrie said. 'Ye-yes' Billy replied, 'of co-course he must, b-but he needn't volunteer information.'

Jerry began to think that Billy had insisted upon coming with her for the sake of persuading her to caution Harold against saying too much when he was called to testify in the great lawsuit between Peterkin & Co., manufacturers in Shannondale, and Wilson & Co., manufacturers in Truesdale, an adjoining town; but she was undeceived when her companion turned suddenly off upon the river road, which would take them at least two miles out of their way.

'Why are you coming here!' Jerrie said, in real distress. 'It is ever so much farther, and I must get home. I have piles of work to do.'

'Co-confound the work,' Billy replied, very energetically for him, and reining his horse up under a wide spreading butternut tree, which grew upon the river bank, he sprang out and pretended to be busy with some part of the harness, while he astonished Jerrie by bursting out, without the least stammer, he was so earnest and so excited: 'I've something to say to you, Jerrie, and I may as well say it now as any time, and know the worst, or the best. I can't bear the suspense any longer, and I got out of the cart so as to stand where I could look you square in the face while I say it.'

And he was looking her square in the face while she grew hot and cold and experienced a sensation quite different from what she had when Tom and Dick made love to her. She had felt no fear of them, but she was afraid of this little man, who stood up so resolutely, with his tongue loosened, and asked her to be his wife, for that was what he did, making his wishes known in a very few words, and then waiting for her answer with his eyes fixed upon her face and a firm, set look about his mouth which puzzled and troubled her and made her uncertain as to how she was to deal with this third aspirant for her hand within twenty-four hours.

Billy had long had it in his mind that Jerry Crawford was the only girl in the world for him, but he might not have spoken quite; so soon had it not been for a conversation held with his father the previous night, when they were alone in a private room at the hotel in Shannondale, waiting for the train which Billy was to take, and which was half an hour late. Peterkin had exhausted himself in oaths and epithets with regard to the lawsuit and those who had brought it against him, and was regaling himself with a cigar and a glass of brandy and water, while Billy sat by the window watching for the train and wishing himself at Grassy Spring with Jerrie. Peterkin seldom drank to excess, but on this occasion he had taken a little too much. When under the influence of stimulants, he was either aggressive and quarrelsome, or jocose and talkative. The latter mood was on him now, and as he drank his brandy and water he held forth upon the subject of matrimony, wondering why his son did not marry, and saying it was quite time he did so and settled down.

'You can have the south wing,' he said, 'and if the rooms ain't up to snuff now, why, I'll make 'em so. The fact is, Bill, I've got money enough—three millions and better; but somehow it doesn't seem to do the thing. It doesn't fetch us to the quality and make us fust-cut. We need better blood than the Peterkins or the Moshers—need boostin', and you must get a wife to boost us. Have you ever thought on't?'

'Billy never had thought of it in that light,' he said, although he had thought of marrying, providing the girl would have him.

'Have you! Thunderation! A girl would be a fool who wouldn't marry three millions, with Lubber-too thrown in! Who is she?' Peterkin asked.

After a little hesitancy Billy replied:

'Jerrie Crawford.'

'Jerrie Crawford! I'll be dammed! Jerrie Crawford!' and Peterkin's big feet came down from the back of the chair on which they were resting, upsetting the chair and his brandy at the same time. 'Jerrie Crawford! I swow! A gal without a cent, or name either, though I used to have a sneakin' notion that I knew who she was, but I guess I didn't. 'Twould have come out afore now. What under heavens put her into your noddle? She can't boost! and then she's head and shoulders taller than you be! How you would look trottin' beside her! Jerrie Crawford! Wal, I swan!' and Peterkin laughed until his big stomach shook like a bowl of jelly.

Billy was angry, and replied that he did not know what height had to do with it, or name either; and as for boosting, he wouldn't marry a king's daughter, if he did not love her; and for that matter Jerrie could boost, for she stood quite as high in town as any young lady.

Both Nina St. Claire and Maude Tracy worshipped her, while Mrs. Atherton paid her a great deal of attention; and so did the Mungers and Crosbys—enough sight more than they did to Ann Eliza with all her money.

'Mo-money isn't ev-everything.' Billy stammered, 'and Je-Jerrie would make a ve-very different pl-place of Le Bateau.'

'Mebby she would—mebby she would; but I'd never thought of her for you,' Peterkin said. 'I'd picked out some; big bug, who perhaps wouldn't wipe her shoes on you. Jerrie is handsome as blazes and no mistake, with a kinder up and comin' way about her which takes the folks. Yes, it keeps growin' on me, and I presume Arthur Tracy would give her away, which would be a feather in your cap; but lord! you'll have to git a pair of the highest heels you ever seen to come within ten foot on her.'

'She's only two inches t-taller than I am,' Billy said, and his father continued:

'Wall, if your heart's set on her go it, and quick, too, I'm goin' to have a smasher of a party in the fall, and Jerrie'll be just the one to draw, I can see her now, standin' there with the diamonds we'll give her sparklin' on her neck, and she lookin' like a queen, and the sinecure of all eyes. But for thunder's sake don't marry the old woman and all. Leave her to Harold, the sneak! I never did like him, and I'll be mad enough to kill him if he goes agin me in the suit, and I b'lieve he will.'

At this point Peterkin wandered off to the suit entirely and forgot Jerrie, who was to boost the house of Peterkin and make it 'fust-cut.' But not so Billy, and all the way from Shannondale to Springfield he was thinking of Jerrie, and wondering if it were possible that she could ever look upon him with favor. Like Tom and Dick, he could scarcely remember the time when he did not think Jerrie the loveliest girl in the world, and ever since he had grown to manhood he had meditated making her his wife, but had feared what his father might say, as he knew how much importance he attached to money. Now however, his father had signified his assent, and, resolving to lose no time, Billy, on his return next day to Le Bateau, seized the opportunity to take Jerrie home, as the occasion for declaring his love, which he did in a manly, straightforward manner, never hinting at any advantage it would be to her to be the wife of a millionaire, or offering any inducement in any way except to say that he loved her and would devote his life to making her happy. Tom Tracy Jerrie had scorned, Dick St. Claire she had pitied, but this little man she felt like ridiculing.

'Oh, Billy,' she said, laughing merrily. 'You can't be in earnest. Why I'm head and shoulders taller than you are. I do believe I could pick you up and throw you into the river. Only think how we should look together; people would think you my little boy, and that I should not like. So, I can never be your wife.'

Nothing cuts a man like ridicule, and sensitive as he was with regard to his size, Billy felt it to his heart's core; and as he stood nervously playing with the reins and looking at Jerrie sitting there so tall and erect in all the brightness of her wonderful beauty, it flashed upon him how impossible it was for that glorious creature ever to be his wife, and what a fool he had made of himself.

'For-gi-give me, Jerrie,' he said, his chin beginning to quiver, and the great tears rolling down his face, 'I know you ca-can't, and I ou-oughtn't to have ask-asked it, bu-but I d-did love you so much, that I f-forgot how impossible it was f-for one like you to lo-love one li-like me. I am so small and insig-insignificant, and st-stutter so. I wish I was dead,' and laying his head upon the horse's neck, he sobbed aloud.

In an instant Jerrie was out of the dog-cart and at his side, talking to and trying to soothe him as she would a child.

'Oh, Billy, Billy,' she said. 'I am so sorry for you, and sorry I said those cruel words about your size. It was only in fun. Your size has nothing to do with my refusal. I know you have a big, kind heart, and next to Harold and Dick, and Mr. Arthur, I like you better than any man I ever knew; but I cannot be your wife. Don't cry, Billy; it hurts me so to see you and know that I have done it. Please stop, and take me home as quickly as possible.'

With a great gulp, and a long sigh like a grieved child, Billy dried his tears, of which he was much ashamed, and helping Jerrie into the cart drove her rapidly to the door of the cottage.

'I should not like Tom, nor Dick, nor Harold to know this,' he said to her, as he stood a moment with her at the gate.

'Billy!' she exclaimed, 'do you know me so little as to think I would tell them, or anybody? I have more honor than that,' and she gave him her hand, which he held tightly in his while he looked earnestly into the sweet young face which could never be his, every muscle of his own quivering with emotion, and telling of the pain he was enduring.

'Good-bye. I shall be more like a ma-man, and less a ba-baby when I see you again,' and springing into his cart he drove rapidly away.

Jerrie found her grandmother seated at a table and trying to iron.

'Grandma,' she said, 'this is too bad. I did not mean to stay so long. Put down that flat-iron this minute. I am coming there as soon as I lay off my hat.'

Running up the stairs to her room, Jerrie put away her hat, and then, throwing herself upon the bed, cried for a moment as hard as she could cry. The look on Billy's face haunted her, and she pitied him now more than she had pitied Dick St. Claire.

'Dick will get over it, and marry somebody else, but Billy never,' she said.

Then, rising up, she bathed her eyes, and pushing back her tangled hair, stood for a moment before the mirror, contemplating the reflection of herself in it.

'Jerrie Crawford,' she said, 'you must be a mean, heartless, good-for-nothing girl, for it certainly is not your Dutch face, nor yellow hair, nor great staring eyes, which make men think that you will marry them; so it must be your flirting, coquettish manners. I hate a flirt. I hate you, Jerrie Crawford.'

Once when a little girl, Jerrie had said to Harold, 'Why do all the boys want to kiss me so much?' and now she might have asked, 'Why do these same boys wish to marry me?' It was a curious fact that she should have had three offers within twenty-four hours; and she didn't like it, and her face wore a troubled look all that hot afternoon as she stood at the ironing table, perspiring at every pore, and occasionally smiling to herself as she thought, 'Grassy Spring, Le Bateau, Tracy Park, I might take my choice, if I would, but I prefer the cottage,' and then at the thought of Tracy Park her thoughts went off across the sea to Germany, and the low room with the picture upon the wall, and her resolve to find it some day.

'Far in the future it may be, but find it I will, and find, too, who I am,' she said to herself, little dreaming that the finding was close at hand, and that she had that day lighted the train which was so soon to bear her on to the end.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

MAUDE.

Harold did not finish his work at the Allen farm-house until Tuesday, so it was not until Wednesday afternoon that he started to pay his promised visit to Maude. Jerrie had seen her twice, and reported her as much better, although still very weak.

'She is so anxious to see you. Don't you think you can go this afternoon?' she said to Harold, in the morning, as she helped him weed the garden and pick the few strawberries left upon the vines.

'Ye-es, I guess I can—if you'll go with me,' he said.

He was so loth to be away from Jerrie when it was not absolutely necessary, that even a call upon Maude without her did not seem very tempting. But Jerrie could not go now, for Nina and Marian Raymond came down to the cottage to spend the afternoon, and Harold went alone to the park house, where he found Maude in the room she called her studio trying to finish a little water-color which she had sketched of the cottage as it was before the roof was raised.

'I mean it for Jerrie,' she had said to Harold, who stood by her when she sketched it, 'and I am going to put her under the tree, with her sun bonnet hanging down her back, as she used to wear it when she was a little girl, and you are to be over there by the fence, looking at me coming up the lane.'

It was the best thing Maude had ever done, for the likeness to Jerrie and to herself was perfect, while the cottage, embowered in trees and flowers, made it a most attractive picture. Harold had praised it a great deal, and told her that it would make her famous. But when the carpenter work came in Maude put it aside until now, when she brought it out again, and was just beginning to retouch it in places, as Harold was announced.

She was looking very tired, and it seemed to Harold that she had lost many pounds of flesh since he saw her last. Her face was pale, and pinched, and wan, but it flushed brightly as Harold came in, and she went eagerly forward to meet him.

'Hally, you naughty boy!' she began, as she gave him her little, thin hand. 'Why didn't you come before? You don't know how I have missed you. You must not forget me now that Jerrie is at home.'

She had led him to a seat, and then herself sank into a large cushioned easy chair, against which she leaned her head wearily, while she looked at him with eyes which ought to have told Harold how much he was to her, and so put him on his guard, and saved the misunderstanding which followed.

'No, Maude, I couldn't forget you,' he said; and without really knowing that he was doing it, he put his hand upon the little soft white one lying on the arm of the chair.

Every nerve in Maude's body thrilled to the touch of that hand upon which she involuntarily laid her other one, noticing as she did so the signs of toil upon it, and feeling sorry for him. One would have thought them lovers, sitting there thus together, but nothing could have been farther from Harold's mind. He was thinking only of Jerrie, and his resolve to confide in Maude, and get her opinion with regard to his chance.

'Now is as good a time as any,' he thought, wondering how he should begin, and finding it harder than he had imagined it would he.

At last after a few commonplaces, Maude told him again that he must not neglect her now that Jerrie was at home.

'Neglect you? How can I do that?' he said, 'when I look upon you as one of my best friends, and in proof of it, I am going to tell you something, or, rather, ask you something, and I hope you will answer me truly. Better that I know the worst at first than learn it afterward.'

Maude's face was aflame now with a great and sudden joy, and her soft eyes drooped beneath Harold's as he went on stammeringly, for he began to feel the awkwardness of telling one girl that he loved another, even though that other were her dearest friend.

'I hardly know how to begin,' he said, 'it is such a delicate matter, and perhaps I'd better say nothing at all.'

'Was he going to stop? Had he changed his mind—and would he not after all, say the words she had so longed to hear?' Maude asked herself, as she turned her eyes appealingly to him, while he sat silent and unmoved, his thoughts very, very far from her to whom he was all in all.

Poor Maude! She was weak and sick, and impulsive and mistaken in the nature of Harold's feelings for her; so judge her not too harshly, my prudish reader, if she at last did what Arthur would have called 'throwing herself at his head.'

'I can guess what you mean,' she said, after a long pause, during which he did not speak. 'I have long suspected that you cared for me just as I care for you, and have wondered you did not tell me so, but supposed that you refrained because I was rich and you were poor; but what has that to do with those who love each other? I am glad you have spoken; and you have made me very happy; and even if we can never be more to each other than we are now, because I may die, as I sometimes fear I shall—'

'Oh, Maude, Maude, you are mistaken. I—,' came from Harold like a cry of horror as he wrenched away his hand lying between hers, and to which her slender fingers hung caressingly.

What could she mean? How had she understood him? he asked himself, while great drops of sweat gathered upon his forehead and in the palms of his hands, as like lightning the past came back to him, and he could see as in a printed page that what he had thought mere friendship for himself was a far different and deeper feeling, while he unwittingly had fanned the flame; and was now reaping the result.

'What can I do?' he said aloud, unconsciously, while from the depths of the chair on which Maude was leaning back so wearily came a plaintive voice like that of a child:

'Ring the bell, and give me my handkerchief.'

He was at her side in a moment, bending over her, and looking anxiously into the pallid face from which the bright color had faded, leaving it gray, and pinched, and drawn, it seemed to him. Had he killed her by blurting out so roughly that she was mistaken; and thus filling her with mortification and shame? No, that could not be, for as he brought her handkerchief and bent still closer to her, she whispered to him:

'I am not mistaken, Hally. I am going to die, but you have made the last days of my life very, very happy.'

She thought he was referring to herself and her situation when he told her she was mistaken, and with a smothered groan he was starting for the camphor, as she bade him do, when the door opened, and Mrs. Tracy herself appeared.

'What is it?' she asked, sharply; then, as she saw Maude's face she knew what it was, and going swiftly to her, said to Harold:

'Why did you allow her to talk and get excited? What were you saying to her?'

Instantly Maude's eyes went up to Harold's with an appealing look, as if asking him not to tell her mother then—a precaution which was needless, as he had no intention to tell Mrs. Tracy, or any one, of the terrible blunder he had made; and with a hope that the reality might dawn upon Maude, he answered, truthfully:

'I was talking to her of Jerrie. I am very sorry.'

If Maude heard she did not understand, for drops of pinkish blood were oozing from her lips, and she looked as if she were already dead, as in obedience to Mrs. Tracy's command, Harold took her in his arms and carried her to the couch near the open window, where he laid her down as tenderly as if she were indeed his affianced wife.

'Thanks,' she sighed, softly, and her bright, beautiful eyes looked up at him with an expression which half tempted him to kiss the quivering lips from which he was wiping the stains so carefully, while Mrs. Tracy, at the door, gave some orders to a servant.

'You can go now,' she said, returning to the couch, and dismissing him with her usual hauteur of manner; while Maude put up her hand and whispered:

'Come soon—and Jerrie.'

Had Harold been convicted of theft or murder he could scarcely have felt worse than he did as he walked slowly through the park, reviewing the situation and wondering what he ought to do.

'If it almost killed her when she thought I loved her, it would surely kill her to know that I do not,' he thought. 'I cannot undeceive her now, while she is so weak; but when she is better and able to bear it, I will tell her the truth.'

'And if she dies?' came to him like the stab of a knife, as he remembered how white she looked as he held her in his arms. 'If she does,' he said, 'no one shall ever know of the mistake she made. In this I will be true to Maude, even should the world believe I loved her and had told her so. But, oh, Heaven! spare me that, and spare Maude's life for many years. She is too young, too sweet, too good to die.'

This was Harold's prayer as he rested for a moment in the pine-room, where he had often played with the little girl, and where he could now see her so plainly picking up the cones, or sitting on the soft bed of needles, with the bloom on her cheeks and the brightness in her soft black eyes which had looked so lovingly at him an hour ago. 'Spare Maude; do not let her die!' was his prayer, and that of many others during the week which followed, when Maude's life hung on a thread, and every bell at the park house was muffled, and the servants spoke only in whispers; while Frank Tracy sat day and night in the room where his daughter lay, perfectly quiet, except as she sometimes put up her hand to stroke his white hair or wipe away the tears constantly rolling down his cheeks.

In Frank's heart there was a feeling worse than death itself, for keen remorse and bitter regret were torturing his soul as he sat beside the wreck of all his hopes and felt that he had sinned for naught. He knew Maude would die, and then what mattered it to him if he had all the money of the Rothschilds at his command?

'Oh, Gretchen, you are avenged, and Jerrie, too! Oh, Jerrie!' he said, one day, unconsciously, as he sat by his daughter, who, he thought, was sleeping. But at the mention of Jerrie's name her eyes unclosed and fixed themselves upon her father with a look in which he read an earnest desires for something.

'What is it, pet?' he asked. 'Do you want anything?'

They had made her understand that, she must not speak, for the slightest effort to do so always brought on a fit of coughing which threatened a hemorrhage, of which she could not endure many more. But they had brought her a little slate, on which she sometimes wrote her requests, though that, too, was an effort. Pointing now to the slate, she wrote, while her father held it:

'I want Jerrie.'

'I thought so; and you shall have her for just as long as she will stay,' Frank said; and a servant was dispatched to the cottage with the message that Jerrie must come at once, and come prepared to pass the night, if possible.

It had been very dreary for Maude during the time she had been shut up in her room, to which no one was admitted except her father and mother, the doctor, and the nurse. Many messages of enquiry and sympathy, however, had come to her from the cottage, and Grassy Spring, and Le Bateau, where Ann Eliza was still kept a prisoner with her sprained ankle; and once Jerrie had written to Maude a note full of love and solicitude and a desire to see her. As a postscript she added:

'Harold sends his love, and hopes you will soon be better. You don't know how anxious he is about you. Why, I believe he has lost ten pounds since your attack, for which he seems to blame himself, thinking he excited you too much by talking to you.'

Maude listened to this note, which her father read to her, with a smile on her face and tears on her long eyelashes; but when he came to the postscript she laughed aloud, as a little child laughs at the return of its mother, for whom it has been hungering. This was the first word she had had from him, except that he had called to enquire for her, and she had so longed for something which should assure her that he remembered her even as she did him. She had no distrust of him, and would as soon have doubted that the sun would rise again as to have doubted his sincerity; but she wanted to hear again that he loved her, and now she had heard it, and, folding her hands upon her breast, she fell into the most, refreshing sleep she had had since her illness. Could Maude have talked and seen people, or if she had been less anxious to live, she would probably have told Jerrie and Nina, and possibly Ann Eliza Peterkin, of what had passed between herself and Harold, but she had not seen them; while life, with Harold to love her, looked so bright and sweet, that if by keeping silence she could prolong it, she would do so for months, if necessary. To live for Harold was all she wished or thought about; and often when they hoped she was sleeping, she lay so still, with her eyes closed and her arms folded upon her breast, just as if she were praying in her dreams, her father thought. She was praying for life and length of days, with strength to make Harold as happy as he ought to be, and was thinking of and planning all she meant to do for him when once they were married. First to Europe, where she would be so proud to show him the places she had seen, and where Jerrie would be with them, for in all her plans Jerrie had almost as prominent a place as herself.

'I am nothing without Jerrie,' she thought 'She keeps me up, and Jerrie will live with us, and Mrs. Crawford; that makes four, just enough for a nice game of whist in long winter evenings, when it is so cold outside but warm and bright within—always bright for Harold, whose life has been so full of care and toil. Poor boy! how I pitied his great warm hand when it was holding mine so lovingly, and how I could have kissed every seam and scar upon it. But by and by his hands shall be white like Tom's, though not so soft. I hate a hand which feels like a fluff of cotton. He shall not live here, for Harold could never get along with mother and Tom; but we will build a house together, Hally and I, with Jerrie to help and plan—build one where the cottage stands, or near it, so Jerrie can still see the old Tramp House she is so fond of. Not a house like this, with such big rooms, but a pretty, modern Queen Ann house, with every room a corner room, and a bay-window in it. And Harold will have an office in town, and I shall drive down for him every afternoon and take him home to dinner and to Jerrie.'

Such was the nature of Maude's thoughts, as she lay day after day upon the couch, too weak to do more thin lift her hands or rise her head when the dreadful paroxysms of coughing seized her and racked her fragile frame. Still she was very happy, and the happiness showed itself upon her, where there rested a look of perfect content and peace, which her father and mother had noticed and commented upon, and which Jerrie saw the moment she entered the room and stood by Maude's side.

'Dear Maude,' she said, as she took the hot hands in hers and kissed them tenderly.

Then she sat down beside her, and smoothed her hair, and told her how lovely she looked in her pretty rose-colored wrapper, and how sorry every one was for her, and that both she and Nina would have been there every day, only they knew they could not see her. Then, as the great black eyes fixed themselves steadily upon her, with a look of enquiry in them, she set her teeth hard, and began:

'I don't think anyone has been more sorry than Harold. Why, for the first few days after you were taken so ill he just walked the floor all the time he was in the house, and when grandma asked what ailed him, he said, "I am thinking of Maude, and am afraid my call upon her was the cause of the attack."'

'N—n—,' Maude began, but checked herself in time, and taking up her slate, wrote, 'Tell him it was not his call. I am glad he came.'

'Yes I will,' Jerrie replied, scarcely able to keep back her tears, when she saw how cramped and irregular the handwriting was, so unlike Maude's, and realized more and more how weak and sick was the little girl whose eyes followed her everywhere and always grew brighter and softer when she was talking to her of Harold.

All day and all night Jerrie sat by her, sometimes talking to her and answering the questions she wrote upon the slate, but oftener in perfect silence, when Maude seemed to be asleep. Then Jerrie's tears fell like rain, the face upon the pillow looked so much like death, and she kept repeating to herself the lines:

'We thought her dying when she slept. And sleeping when she died.'

When the warm July morning looked in at the windows of the sick-room, bringing with it the perfume of hundreds of flowers blooming on the lawn, and the scent of the hay cut the previous day, it found Jerrie still watching by Maude, her own face tired and pale, with dark rings about her eyes, which were heavy with tears and wakefulness. She had not slept at all, and her head was beginning to ache frightfully when the nurse came in and relieved her, telling her breakfast was ready. Maude was awake, and wrote eagerly upon the slate:

'You'll come back? You'll stay all day? You do me so much good, and I am a great deal better for your being here.'

Jerrie hesitated a moment; her head was aching so hard that she longed to get away. But selfishness was not one of Jerrie's faults, and putting her own wishes aside, she said:

'Yes, I will stay until afternoon, and then I must go home. I did not tell you that Harold was going away to-night, did I?'

Maude shook her head, and Jerry went on:

'You know, perhaps, that some time ago a Mr. Wilson, of Truesdale, sued Peterkin for some infringement on a patent, or something of that sort.'