Part 52 (1/2)

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 d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k St. Claire.

'd.i.c.k will get over it, and marry somebody else, but Billy never,' she said.

Then, rising up, she bathed her eyes, and pus.h.i.+ng 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, 'Gra.s.sy 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 x.x.xIX.

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 cus.h.i.+oned 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.