 CHAPTER 25 THE TWO FACES IN THE MIRROR Toward the last of May, Arthur came to Vassar, bringing with him the graduating dress which he had bought in New York with modest his adviser. He had Jerry at the hotel to spend Saturday and Sunday with him, and took her to drive and to shop, and then in the evening asked her to put on her finery that he might see how it looked. I shall not hear you spout out your ari-dition, he said, for I detest crowds with the dreadful smell of the rooms. I have gotten the parkhouse tolerably free from odours, though the cook's drain is terrible at times, and I shall have brimstone burned in the cellar once a week. But what was I saying? Oh, I know. I shall not be here at commencement, and I wish to see if my Jerry is likely to look as well as any of them. So Jerry left him alone while she donned the white dress which fitted her superb figure perfectly. She knew how well it became her, and sure of Arthur's approbation went back to the parlor where she had left him. He was standing with his back to the door when she came in, and going up to him she said, Here I am in all my gugos. Do you think I shall pass muster? She spoke in German as she always did to him, and when he turned quickly there was a startled look on his face as he said, Oh, Jerry, it's you. I thought for a moment it was Gretchen speaking to me, just so she used to come in with her light footstep and soft voice so much like yours. Where is she, Cherry, that she never comes or writes? Where is Gretchen now? His chin quivered as he talked, and there was a moisture in his eyes bent so fondly upon the young girl beside him. He was worn with the fatigue and excitement of his journey and the long drive he had taken, and Jerry knew that whenever he was tired his mind was weaker and wandered more than usual. So she tried to quiet and divert him by calling his attention to her dress and asking how he liked it. It is lovely, he said, examining the lace and the soft flounces. It is the prettiest modern I could find. You know she was with me and helped me select it. Yes, it's lovely, and so are you, Cherry, with Gretchen's eyes and hair and smile and that one dimple in your cheek. She used to wear soft white dresses, and in this you are enough like her to be her daughter. They were standing side by side before a long mirror. She taller for a woman than he was for a man, so that her face was almost on a range with his as he stooped a little forward. Glancing into the mirror at the two faces so near to each other, Jerry saw something which for an instant set every nerve to quivering as she stepped suddenly back, looking first at the man's face and then at her own in the mirror. It was gone now, the look which had so startled her, but it had certainly been there, a likeness between the two faces, and she had seen it plainer than she had ever seen any resemblance between herself and the picture. Gretchen had blue eyes and fair hair and fair complexion, and so had she and so had hundreds of German girls, and all Arthur had ever said to her had never brought to her mind a thought like the two faces in the mirror. What if it were so, flashed like lightning through her brain making her so weak that she grasped Arthur's arm to steady herself as she tried to speak composately. You are as white as your dress, he said. It is this confounded hot room, let us sit near the window. They sat down together on a sofa and, taking up a newspaper, Arthur fanced Jerry gently while she said to him, Do you really think I look like Gretchen? Yes, except that you are taller, you might be her daughter. And she had Gretchen a daughter? Was Jerry's next question put hesitatingly? None that I ever heard of, Arthur replied. And her name when a girl was Marguerite Heinrich was it not? Jerry went on. Yes, who told you? Arthur said. I saw it on a letter which you gave me to post years ago when I was a child. Jerry went on. You never received an answer to that letter, did you? What letter did you post for me to Marguerite Heinrich? I don't know what you mean, Arthur said. The old worried look settling upon his face which always came there when he was trying to recall something he ought to remember. As he grew older he seemed to be annoyed when told of things he had forgotten and as the letter had evidently gone from his mind Jerry said no more of it. She remembered it well and never dreaming that it had not been posted she had watched a long time for an answer which never came. Gretchen was dead, that was settled in her mind, too. But who was she? With the words, what if it were so, still buzzing in her brain, the answer to this question was of vital importance to her and after a moment she continued as if she had all the time been talking of Gretchen. She was Marguerite Heinrich when a girl in Visebaden but she had another name afterward when she was married. You are talking of something you know nothing about. Can't you let Gretchen alone? Arthur said petulantly and, springing up, he began to pace the room in a state of great excitement while Jerry sat motionless with a far-off look in her eyes as if she were seeing in a vision things she could not retain they passed so rapidly before her and were so hazy and indistinct. The likeness she had seen in the glass was gone now. She was not like Arthur at all. It was madness in her to have thought so. And she was not like Gretchen either. Her mother was lying under the little pine tree which she and Harold had planted above the lonely grave. Her mother had been dark and coarse and bony and a peasant woman so Anne Eliza Peterkin who had heard it from her father had told her once when angry with her and Harold when sorely pressed had admitted as much to her. Dark with large hard hands he had said and Jerry had answered indignantly. But hard and black as they were they always touched me gently and tenderly and sometimes I believe I can remember just how lovingly and carefully they wrapped the old cloak around me to keep me warm. Dear mother would do I care how black she was and coarse. She was mine and gave her life for me. This was when Jerry was a child and now that she was older she was seeking to put away this woman with the dark face and the coarse hands and substitute in her place a fairer sweeter face with hands like wax and features like a Madonna. But only for a few moments and then the wild dream vanished in the sad pale face the low voice the music the trees the flowers the sick room the death bed the woman who died and the woman who served all went out together into the darkness and she was Jerry Crawford again wearing her commencement dress to please the man still pacing the floor abstractedly and paying no heed to her when she went out to change her dress for the blue muslin she had worn through the day. When she returned to the parlor she found him at the tea table which had been late during her absence taking her seat opposite to him she made his tea and buttered his toast and chatted and laughed until she succeeded in bringing back a quiet expression to the face which bore no likeness now to her own. He was talking of the commencement exercises and regretting that he could not be present. I may not be home he said and if I am I shall not come crowds kill me and smells kill me and we are sure to have both but Harold will be here and he is better than 40 old coves like me. It is astonishing what a fancy I have taken to that young man. I don't see a fault in him except that he is too infernally proud. Think of his refusing to take any more money from me unless I would accept his note promising to pay it back in time just as if he ever can or will. Indeed he will Jerry exclaimed rousing at once in Harold's defense he will pay every dollar and I shall help him. You and Arthur laughed merrily how will you help him I'd like to know. I shall teach school or give music lessons or do both to earn something for grandmother Jerry answered quickly. And I shall help Harold and shall pay Mr. Frank all he gave grandmother for my board. I know just how much it is. Three dollars a week from the time I was four years old until I came here to school. A big sum I know but I shall pay it. You will see. She went on rapidly and earnestly as she saw the amused look on Arthur's face and felt that he was laughing at her. You are going to pay my brother to the uttermost farthing but what of me? Am I to be left in the cold? He asked as he arose from the table and seated himself upon the sofa near the window. I expect to be your debtor all my life Jerry said as she went up to him. I can never pay you for all you have done for me never. I can only love you which I do so dearly as the kindest and best of men. She was stooping over him now and putting up his hands Arthur do her close to him so that the two faces were again plainly reflected side by side in the mirror opposite. The man's gentle and tender as a woman's the girls flushed and eager and excited as she caught a second time the likeness which made her faint again as she clasped her hands tightly together and listened to what Arthur was saying. You owe me nothing Jerry. The indebtedness is all on my side and has been since the day when a little white sun-bonnet showed itself at my window and a voice which I can hear yet said to me. Mr. Crazy Man don't you want some cherries? You don't know how much of life and sunshine you brought me with the cherries? My sky was very black those days and but for you I am certain that I should long air this have been what you called me a Crazy Man for sure locked up behind bars and bolts. My little Cherry has been all the world to me and though she is very grand and tall and stately now I love to remember her as the child in the sun-bonnet clinging to the ladder and talking to the lunatic inside. That would make a fine picture and if I were an artist I would paint it some day. Perhaps Maude will. Did I tell you that while she was abroad she dabbled in watercolors and now she has what she calls a studio where she perpetrates the most atrocious dobs you ever saw? Poor Maude. She is weak in the upper story but is on the whole a nice girl and very pretty too with her black eyes and brilliant color and kittenish ways. We are great friends now and she is a comfort to me in your absence. I am afraid though that she is not long for this world. Everything tires her and she has grown so thin that a breath might blow her away. I think it would kill Frank to lose her. His life is bound in hers and he once said to me either that he had sold or would sell his soul for her. Would you suppose he meant? Jerry did not reply. The likeness in the mirror had disappeared as Arthur grew more in earnest and she listened more intently to what he was saying of Maude every word as he went on a blow from which she shrank as from some physical pain. Yes, Arthur continued, Maude is weak mentally and physically though I believe she is trying hard to improve her mind or rather that young man Harold is trying to improve it for her. He is at the house nearly every day or she is at the cottage. But hold on, I wasn't to tell and I haven't told. Only he reads to her, sometimes outside when the weather will admit but often her in her studio where she talks to him of art and where I once saw him giving her a sitting while she tried to sketch his face. A caricature I called it, ridiculing it so much that she put it away unfinished and is now at work upon some water lilies he brought her and which are really very good. Mrs. Tracy is not pleased with Harold's visits and I once overheard her saying to Maude, why do you encourage the attentions of that young man and why do you run after him every day? Hold on again, what a tatler I am. Why don't I stick to Dolly who said, you certainly do not care for him, he hasn't assent to his name nor any family and has even worked in Peterkin's furnace. What Maude replied I don't know. I only heard Dolly bang the door hard as she left the room so I suppose the answer was not a pleasing one. Dolly is a grand lady and would not like her daughter to marry any ordinary man like Harold. No, Jerry said slowly as if speaking were an effort. No, and you think Harold likes Maude very much? Likes her? Yes. Why shouldn't he like a girl as pretty as she especially when she meets him more than half way, Arthur replied and Jerry continued in the same measured tone. Yes, and you think he would marry her if her mother would permit it? He is not at all likely to do that, Arthur answered quickly. A man seldom marries a woman who throws herself at his head and lets him see how much she cares for him and Maude is doing just that. She cannot conceal anything. I tell you, Jerry, if the time ever comes when you love somebody better than all the world beside, don't let him know until he speaks for himself. Don't be lightly one. Better be shy and cold than demonstrative and gushing like Maude. Gretchen was shy as a fawn and after I told her I loved her she would not believe it possible. But child, you look fagged and tired. It is time you were in bed. I have talked you nearly to death. I am not tired, Jerry said, and I want to know what it is about Maude's going to the cottage which you must not tell me. Is she there very often and is that throwing herself at Harold's head as you call it? She had her arm around his neck in a coaxing kind of way and Arthur smoothed the soft white hand resting on his coat-collar as he answered laughingly. Mother Eve herself, you would have eaten the apple, too. Had you been, Mrs. Adam? No, no, I shall not tell any secrets. You must wait and see for yourself. And now you must go for I am tired. She said good night and went to her room but not to sleep at once because of the tumult of emotions which had been roused by what Arthur had told her of Maude and Harold. I don't believe now that I really meant him to make love to her when I asked him to amuse her. She whispered to herself as she dashed away two great tears from her cheeks. Then after a moment she continued. But they shall never know. No one shall ever know that I care for I don't. Harold is my brother and I shall love Maude as my sister and I will do all I can to make her more like what Harold's wife should be. She is beautiful and good and sweet and true and with money and position can do far more for him than I could. I, the daughter of a peasant woman, the child of a carpet bag, and yet here Jerry's hands beat the air excitedly as she recalled the wild fancy which had twice taken possession of her that night and which had been born of that likeness seen in the mirror. Many times since she had passed from childhood to womanhood had she speculated upon the mystery which enshrouded her while one recollection after another of past events flitted through her brain only to bewilder her a while then to disappear into oblivion. But never before had she been affected as she was now when the possibility of what might be nearly drove her wild. Oh, if that were so, she said, I could help Harold and I'd give everything to him and make him my king as he is worthy to be. There is something far back, she continued, something different from the woman who died at my side. That face which haunts me so often was a reality somewhere. It has kissed me and called me darling and I saw the life fade out of it, saw it cold and dead. I know I did and sometime I'll go to V's badden and everywhere and clear the mystery of possible and if mother was a peasant girl with hands coarse and hard and black from labor in the field then I too will be a peasant girl and marry a peasant lad and draw his potatoes home in a cart while he trudges at my side. At this picture of herself Jerry laughed out loud and while trying to think how it would seem to draw potatoes in a cart after having dug them she fell asleep and dreamed of Maud and Harold in studios and lilies and a face which was a caricature as Arthur had said and which when at a late hour she awoke proved to be that of the chambermaid whom Arthur had sent to Rouser as he was waiting for his breakfast. Chapter 26 Maud's Letter Tracy Park June blank 1800 blank my darling Jerry I wish I could send you a whiff of the delicious air I am breathing this morning from the roses under my window and the pond lilies which Harold brought me about an hour ago don't you think he was up before the sun and went out upon the river to get them for me because he knows how fond I am of them and I told him yesterday that they always made me think of you they are so sweet and pure and fair I wish you could have heard his voice and seen the look in his eyes as he said yes Jerry is the lily and you are the rose you set each other off admirably I am glad you are such good friends Harold thinks the world of you and were you his own sister I am sure he could not love you better than he does how handsome he has grown since I went away I always thought him splendid looking but he is more than that now so tall and straight with his head set on his shoulders in such an aristocratic kind of way and then his eyes which look at you so well I don't know how they look at you but they are eyes you would trust and never be afraid of anything bad behind them uncle Arthur says his mother was lovely in that his father was one of the handsomest man of his time but I am certain that Harold looks better than either of them and has inherited the good qualities of both without a single bad one Fred Raymond who you know is so sweet on Nina St. Clair says that if Harold had all the blood of a hundred kings in his veins he could not be more courtly or dignified in his manner than he is and that is a great deal for a Kentuckian to say Fred is now at grassy spring visiting Dick St. Clair and will stay until Nina comes home I wish Harold was rich and if I had money of my own I believe I'd give it to him only he wouldn't take it he is so awfully proud and afraid somebody will help him and yet I respect him for the pride which has made him teach school and do everything he could find to do in order to go through college the last two years and pay his own way but I did not like it a bit when I heard he had accepted a situation in Peterkin's furnace I know he had good wages but it is dreadful to think of Harold under such a man even if Billy is there when I told uncle Arthur he laughed and said honor and shame from no condition rise I wonder what he meant I asked Tom and he said I was a fool Harold is studying law now all the time he can get in Judge St. Clair's office but he comes to read to me for an hour or more nearly every day he came of his own accord to and sometimes I have think he is trying to drive something into my head or was when he began to read to me about those old Greeks Hesiod or Herod I don't know which and theogony that's rather a pretty name don't you think so but I could not stand the Greeks my mind is too weak to be impressed by anything Grecian unless it is a Grecian bent you tried it until you were discouraged and gave it up telling me I was the stupidest idiot you ever saw that was the time we had the spelling school in the tramp house and you were the teacher and Harold chose me first and I spelled biscuit biscuit do you remember how I cried and when you told me nobody would ever like me unless I knew something Harold said don't talk like that Jerry those who know the least are frequently like the best what a comfort those words have been to me and especially at the time when I failed so utterly in my examination at Vassar and had to give it up oh Jerry you do not know how mortified I was over that failure to think I knew so little and the worst of it is I can't learn or understand or remember and it makes my head ache so to try I am sorry on father's account he is so proud of me and would like to see me take the lead in everything poor father he is growing old so fast why his hair is as white as snow and he sometimes talks to himself just as uncle Arthur does I wonder what tells him that he never smiles or seems interested in anything except when I am smoothing his hair or sitting on his knee then he brightens up and calls me his pet and his darling and talk square kind of talk I think he asks me if I am glad I live at Tracy Park if I like the pretty things he buys me and if I should be happy if I were poor not real poor you know but as we were at Langley before I was born I went there with him a few weeks ago for the first time and oh my goodness gracious such a pokey little house with the stairs going right up in the room and such a tiny stuffy bedroom I tried to fancy mama scent bottles and brushes and combs and that box for polishing her nails transported to that room and her in there with Rosalie dressing her hair it made me laugh till I cried and I think papa did actually cry for he sat down upon the stairs and turned his head away and when he looked up his eyes were wet and red with such a sorry look in them that I went straight up and kissed him and asked him playfully if he were crying for the old days when he lived in that house and sold caught fish in the store yes mod he said I believe I'd give the remainder of my life if I could be put back as I was when your uncle Arthur's letter came and turned my head oh if the years and everything could be blotted out what do you suppose he meant I was frightened and did not say a word until he asked me those questions I told you about did I like pretty things did I like to live at Tracy Park and could I bear to be poor and live in the Langley house I just told him no I should not like to live in Langley that I did like living at Tracy Park and did like the pretty things which money bought then I ought to be content if my beautiful mod is so he said in the tired look on his face lifted a little he calls me beautiful so often but I don't see it do you of course you don't you think me too black and small and thin and so I am but I think you have the loveliest and sweetest face I ever saw except Gretchen's who was she I wonder uncle Arthur does not talk much of her now though I believe he kisses her every night and a morning how much he thinks of you and how much he has talked of cherry since his visit to you in May did he say anything to you of a trip to California he took us quite by surprise two weeks ago by telling us he was going he wanted to see the Yosemite Valley before he died he said and June was the time to see it so he started off with Charles about 10 days ago and the house seems so dull without him if I can I shall come to see you graduate with the other vassers though I shall be ashamed to be seen where I failed so utterly I might have known I should for I haven't about me a single quality which would entitle me to be a vassar how learned you and Nina will be and how you will cast me in the shade making me seem stupider than ever I did try very hard to learn to speak German when I was abroad with mama for father wished it particularly but I could not do it and gave it up I have not a capacity for anything except to love and suffer and a sacrifice for those I love do you know it sometimes frightens me to think how devotedly I could love someone not a girl but a man a lover a husband who loved me why I would give my life for him and bear any kind of torture if it would add to his happiness but why write this nonsense to you who never acted as if you cared an atom for any boy not even Dick St. Clair who used to give you sugar hearts and call you his little wife entre nous who says I don't know two French words mama would like to make a match between dick and me but she never will dick is nice and I like him but not that way poor mama how much she thinks of money and position I tell her she ought to have a photograph of the old Langley house hung up in her room to keep her in mind of her former condition just now she has the craze to hammer brass and paint and watercolors and goes over to Mrs. Atherton's to take lessons don't you think that Mrs. Peterkin may Jane had like aspirations with mama and wanted to join the class but the teacher found that she had as many pupils as she could attend to and so may Jane is left out in the cold but Mr. Peterkin says by George my wife shall have accomplishments if money can buy him and so I suppose she will. What strides those Peterkins have taken to be sure and what a big house he has built with such a funny name le bateau which as he pronounces it sounds like l'oeuvre to it is just finished and they have moved into it I have not been there but Tom has and he says it fairly glitters it is so gorgeous and looks inside like those chariots which come with circuses you ought to hear Peterkin talk about his Anne Lizzie who he says is to Vassar getting school in with the big bugs and when she comes home he is going to get her a house and cart for her own and a maid and a valet too if she wants one well there are some bigger fools in the world than I am and that's a comfort as for Billy he stammer is worse if possible than he used to when he told us we were pl, pl, pl, pluggie, mean to, pl, pl, pl, plugg and Lizzy so but I guess I will let him burst upon you and all the magnificence of his summer attire his light clothes short coat tight pants pointed shoes and stovepipe hat to make him look taller he comes here occasionally to see Tom and always talks of you I do believe you might be Mrs. Billy Peterkin and live at Le bateau if you wanted but really Billy is very kind to Harold who gets twice as much wages in the office when he writes there, as he would if it were not for Billy. Tom is home doing nothing but taking his ease and aping an English swell. You know he was with Mama and me in England, and since his return has affected everything English and looks quite like the dude of the period. He too seems interested in your return, and I don't know but you might be mistress of Tracy Park if you could fancy the encumbrance. Dick St. Clair is going to Vassar and Harold too if he possibly can. He is very busy just now with something he must finish and perhaps he can't be there. Tom is going and Fred Raymond and Billy Peterkin quiet a turnout from Shannondale. I can hardly wait to see you. Only think it is almost two years since I said goodbye, for we went to Europe just after Harold was graduated and your last Christmas holidays were over before we came home. What a long letter I have written you and have not told you a word of my help about which you inquired so particularly. Did Uncle Arthur tell you anything? I wish he had not, for it worries me to have people look and act and talk as if I were sick when I am not. If I had not a pain in my side and a tickling cough which keeps me awake nights and makes me sweat until my hair is wet I should be perfectly strong, and but for the pain and the weariness I feel as well as I ever did, and I go out nearly every day and I don't want to die and leave my beautiful home and father and mother and you and everybody I love. I am too young to die, I cannot die. Oh, Jerry, I am glad you are coming home. You will do me good just as Harold does. He is so strong every way and so kind. I can't begin to tell you what he has been to me since I came home in March, more than a friend, more than a brother. And now I must say goodbye, for I am getting tired and must rest. I was at the cottage this morning and Harold is coming here this afternoon to read Tennyson's May Queen to me. He has read it a dozen times, but I am never tired of it, although it makes me cry to think of that grave in the long grass with little Alice in it, cold and dead, listening for those she loved to come and weep over her. You know, she says to her mother, I shall hear you when you pass, with your feet above me in the long and pleasant grass. Oh, Jerry, if it should be, you know what I mean. If there should come a time when people say to each other, Maude Tracy is dead. You'll come often, won't you? And think of me always as the friend who, weak and stupid as she was, loved you dearly, dearly. Now, goodbye again. Harold has just come in and says, remember me to Jerry and tell her I shall hope to see her graduated, but do not know I am so busy. Truly and lovingly, Maude Tracy. P.S. Tom has come in and says, give my love to Jerry. P.S. Number 2. Dick St. Clair and Fred Raymond are here and both send their regards. P.S. Number 3. If you will believe me, Billy Peterkin is here nibbling his little cane and says, present my compliments to Miss Crawford. Just think of it. Five or rather four young men for Tom don't count for me to entertain. But I can do it and rather like it too though they all tire me, except Harold. Jerry read this letter which was received a few days before commencement two or three times and each time she read it the little ache in her heart kept growing larger until at last it was actual pain and covering her face with her hands she cried like a child. It is Maude I am crying for, she kept saying to herself, I know she is worse than they have told me. She is going to die and I am mean to grudge her Harold's love if that will make her happier. Why does she go to the cottage so often I wonder? Is it to see him? He would not like me to do that. He was chagrined when I kissed him at Harvard. But then he does not love me and he does, Maude, but he must come to commencement. I'll write and tell him so, and seizing her pen Jerry wrote rapidly and excitedly. Dear Harold, I have just heard from Maude who says there is a possibility that you will not come to Vassar, but I shall be so disappointed if you do not. I would rather have you here than all the wise old heads in the state. So come without fail no matter what you are doing. I can't imagine anything which should keep you. Tell Grandma I am longing to be home and keep thinking just how cool and nice the kitchen looks with the hop vine over the door. But she will have to raise the roof soon for I do believe I've grown an inch since last winter and I'm in danger of knocking my brains out in those low rooms. Goodbye till I see you. Jerry End of Chapter 25 and 26 Chapter 27 and 28 of Gretchen by Mary Jane Holmes This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 27 He cometh not, she said The she was Jerry, who the night before commencement was shaking hands with Dick St. Clair, Fred Raymond, Tom Tracy, and Billy Peterkin, all of whom had arrived on the evening train and after dinner had come to pay their respects to the young ladies from Shannondale. The he was Harold, for whom Jerry asked at once, Where is Harold? Is he coming in the morning? she said, as she stood tall and straight and queen-like before the four young men who glanced at each other with a significance in their looks which she did not understand. It was Dick St. Clair who took it upon himself to explain. No, hell is not coming, he said, and he is awfully cut up about it. He thought he might manage it until yesterday when he found it impossible to do so. You see, he has taken a job which must be done at a certain time. Taken a job? What job? What do you mean? And her blue eyes flashed upon each of the young men falling last upon Tom Tracy as if she expected him to answer which he did in the half sneering, half satirical tone which made her long to box his ears. Why, it's a sort of carpenter's job, he said, and I heard his hammer going this morning before sunrise for I was up early for once and out in the park. Sounded as if he were shingling a roof and that's work, you know, which must be done in fair weather. It might rain and spoil the plastering. Thank you, Jerry answered curtly. Harold is shingling a roof and cannot come, but where is Mott? Is she shingling a roof, too? Yes, by Joe, you've hid it. Mott's shingling a roof, too. The best joke out. Billy Peterkin chimed in, glad of an opportunity to join in the conversation and so get some attention from Jerry. He was a little man, only five feet two with heels, and he wore the light clothes of which Mott had written, and a stove, pipe hat, and dove-colored gloves and carried a little cane which he constantly nibbled at when he was not beating his little boot with it. But he was good-natured and inoffensive and kind-hearted, with nothing low or mean in his nature, and Jerry liked him far better than she did the elegant Tom as she had nicknamed him, who stood six feet without heels and who knew exactly what shade of color to choose from his neck-tie to his hose, which were always silk of the finest quality. Tom was faultlessly gotten up and carried himself as if he knew it, and knew, too, that he was Tom Tracy, the future heir of Tracy Park, if he were fortunate enough to outlive both his uncle and his father. Jerry had disliked him when he was a boy and was not very fond of him now, although they were seemingly good friends, except when he roused her to anger with what she called his heirs. Turning her back upon him, she pretended to be interested in little Billy, as she was in the habit of calling him. He was so short and she was so tall. He was speaking of Harold, and he said, It's a deus' shame he couldn't come, but he sent some money, Dick, to buy you a basket in New York, and by George we've got a stunner down to the hotel. Only I'm afraid it'll be wilted some before tomorrow. Yes, Dick said, coming forward. I should not have told you now if Billy had not let it out. Harold did give me some money to buy a basket of flowers for you. The very best I could find, he said, and I got a big one. But I'm afraid it was not very fresh, for it begins to look wilted now. You must blame Tom, though. He pretends to be up in flowers and advised my getting this one in New York because it was so handsome and cheap. Oh, it is all right. Tom drawled in that affected voice he had adopted since his return from Europe. It was the best, anyway, we could get for the money. Hell, you know, isn't very flush in the pocket. It was a mean speech to make, and all Tom's audience felt it to be so, while Jerry crimsoned with resentment and answered hotly. Faded or not, I shall care more for Harold's flowers than for all the rest which may be given me. This was not very encouraging to three at least of the young men who were intending to make the finest floral offering they could find to the girl whom in their secret hearts they admired more than any girl they had ever seen, and who had she made the slightest sign might have been installed at Grassy Spring or Tracy Park or Le Bateau within less than a month. But Jerry had never made a sign and had laughed and shattered and flirted with them all, not accepting Tom, who had long ago dropped his supercilious air of superiority, and patronage when talking with her and who treated her with a gentleness and consideration almost loverlike. Horribly jealous of Harold whom he still felt infinitely above, although he did not now often openly show it, he had encouraged the visits of the latter to Tracy Park and, by jokes and hints and innuendos, had fed the flame which he knew was burning in his sister's heart. There will be a jolly row when mother finds it out, he said to Maude one day, for you know she holds her head a great deal higher than Hal Hastings, who isn't the chap I'd choose for a brother-in-law. But if you like him all right, stick to him and I'll stand by you to the death. This was to Maude while to his mother, when she complained that Harold came there quite too often and that Maude was running after him too much, he said. Nonsense, mother, let Maude alone! She knows what she is about and would not wipe her shoes on Hal Hastings, much less marry him. She is lonely without Nina and Jerry and not strong enough to read much herself, and Hal amuses her, that's all. I know. I have talked with her. I am keeping watch, and the moment I see any indications of love-making on either side I will give you warning, and together we will put my fine chap in his proper place in a jiffy. Tom was a young man now of twenty-seven, tall and finely formed, with all his mother's good looks and his uncle Arthur's courtliness of manner when he felt that his companions were worthy of his notice, but proud and arrogant and self-asserting with his inferiors are those whom he thought such. He had never overcome his unwarrantable dislike of Harold whom he considered far beneath him, but Harold was too popular to be openly treated with contempt and so there was a show of friendship and civility between them, without any real liking on either side. Tom could not tell just when he began to look upon Jerry as the loveliest girl he had ever seen and to contemplate the feasibility of making her Mrs. Tom Tracy. His admiration for her had been of slow growth for she was worse than a nobody, a child of the tramp house of whose antecedents nothing was known while he was a Tracy of Tracy Park whom a duchess might be proud to wed. But he had succumbed at last to Jerry's beauty and sprightliness and originality, and now his love for her had become the absorbing passion of his life, and he would have made her his wife at any moment in the face of his mother's opposition. By some subtle intuition he felt that Harold was his rival and whatever he could do to lower him in Jerry's estimation he would do without the least hesitation. It was Tom who had insisted that Harold's basket should be bought in New York, where there was a better choice he said, and he had himself selected flowers which he knew were not fresh and would be still worse twenty-four hours later. Why don't you get yours here if it is the best place? Billy Peterkin had asked him and he replied, Oh, we can't be bothered with more than one basket in the train, I can find something there. He did not say what he intended to find or that baskets were quite too common for him, but after leaving the young ladies in the evening he went to a florist and ordered for Jerry a book of white daisies with a rack of purple pansies for it to rest upon. That will certainly be unique and show her that I have taste, he thought. For Nina a bouquet was sufficient, while for Anne Eliza Peterkin he ordered nothing. Tom could be lavish of his money where his own interest was concerned, but where he had no interest he was stingy and even mean, and so poor little red-haired Anne Eliza who would have prized a leaf from him more than all the florist's garden from another was to get nothing from him. What business has old Peterkin's daughter to graduate anyway, he thought, and he looked on with a sneer while Billy ordered five baskets, one of which was to be a white roses with a heart of blue forget-me-nots in the center? What under heaven are you going to do with five baskets? He asked, but Billy was non-committal, for he would not own that three were intended for Jerry whom he wish to carry off the palm so far as flowers were concerned. And she did. And she did, for of all the young ladies who the next day passed in review before the multitude no one attracted so much attention or received so much praise as Jerry or half as many flowers, her room was full of them, baskets and bouquets in Tom Tracey's book showing conspicuously from the rest and attracting universal admiration. But alas for poor Harold's gift. Dick had watered it the last thing before going to bed in the first thing in the morning, but the flowers were limp and faded and gave forth a sickly odor while the leaves of the roses were dropping off and only the size which was immense remained to tell what it once had been. But Jerry singled it out from all the rest and that night at a reception given to the graduates she wore in her bosom two faded pink roses the only one she could make hold together and which Nina told her smelled a little old. But Jerry did not care. They were Harold's roses which she had sent to her and she prized them more than all the rest she had received. At little Billy's heart she laughed till she cried and then gave it to a young girl who admired it exceedingly. Tom's book she knew was exquisite and thanked him for it and told him it was lovely and then gave it to Anne Eliza whose offerings had been so few. A bouquet from Dick St. Clair and Fred Raymond and a basket from her brother were all and the little red-haired girl who with her heavy gold chain and locket and diamond earrings and three bracelets and five fingerings had looked like a jeweler's shop felt aggrieved and neglected and Jerry found her sobbing in her room as if her heart were broken. Only three snipping things she said and you had 25 and mother will be so disappointed and father too when he knows just how few I got. I wish I was popular like you. Never mind said Jerry cheerfully it was only a happen so am I getting so many. You are just as nice as I am and I'll give you part of mine to take home to your mother. I can never carry them all I should have to charter a car and in a few moments six of Jerry's baskets were transferred to Anne Eliza's room including Tom Tracy's book. Oh I can't take that. Anne Eliza said he didn't mean it for me he didn't give me anything and I I here she began to sob again and laying her hand pittingly upon the bowed head Jerry said yes I know I understand something from Tom Tracy would have pleased you more than from anyone else but listen to me Annie Tom is not worth your tears don't you care for him the girl asked lifting her head suddenly not a particle as you mean you have nothing to fear from me Jerry replied this was a grain of comfort to the girl who had been weak enough to waste her affections upon Tom Tracy and to hope that she might eventually succeed in bringing him to her feet for she knew his fondness for money and that she should in all probability be one day the heiress of a million so great was her infatuation for the man who had never shown her the slightest attention that even his flowers though secondhand and not intended for her were everything to her and when she packed her trunk that night she put them carefully away in many wrappings of paper to be brought out at home in the privacy of her own room and kept as long as the least beauty or perfume remained it was a very merry party which the New York train carried to Shannondale the next day and Jerry was the merriest and gayest of them all bandying jokes and jests and cacketing pretty equally with the young men until neither Tom nor Dick nor Billy quite knew what he was doing or saying but always in her gayest moods when her eyes were brightest and her wit the keenest there was in Jerry's heart a thought of Harold who had so disappointed her and a wonder as to the nature of the job which had been of sufficient importance to keep him from vassar shingling a roof and mod is helping him Billy said I wonder what he meant she was thinking when she heard an Eliza cry out that the towers of libato were visible as she had not seen that wonderful structure since its completion she arose from her seat and going to the window looked out upon the massive pile in the distance looking with its turrets and towers and round projections like some old castle rather than a home where people could live and be happy it is very grand she said to an Eliza and Billy who was leaning toward her replied yes to grand for a Peterkin it wants you there Jerry as its masterpiece and by jove you can be there too if you will no one heard this attempted an offer but Jerry who with a saucy toss of her head replied laughingly thank you Billy I'll think of it and let you know when I make up my mind to come just now I prefer the cottage in the lane to any spot on earth oh here we are at the station she cried as the train shot round a curve and Shanondale was reached there was a scrambling for bundles and flowers and wraps Fred Raymond gathering up Nina's while Dick and Tom and Billy almost fought over Jerry's and poor little Annalisa would have carried hers alone if Jerry had not helped her chapter 28 in Shanondale 10 years of change in Shanondale and the green hillside which stretched from the common down to the river and where our story opened sheep and cows were feeding in the pasture land is thickly covered with dwellings of every kind of architecture from the Mansard roof to the Queen Anne style just coming into fashion while the metal lands are dotted over with a small houses of the men who work in the large furnace or manufacturing which Peterkin had bought and enlarged as a monument he said and where he sometimes employed as many as 400 men and had set up a whistle which could be heard for miles and miles it was so loud and shrill a screecher Peterkin called it and he always listened with a smile of pride and satisfaction on his face when he heard the first indications of its blowing and knew that 400 men were quickening their steps on account of it lest they should be a few minutes late and have their wages docked Peterkin counted two millions now and boasted the finest or at least the most expensive house in the county not even accepting Tracy Park which still held its own for solidity and old fashion dignity and was the show place to the strangers visiting in Shanondale when Peterkin made $20,000 in one day from some speculation in stocks he said to Mr. St. Clair who was now a judge and with whom he pretended to be on terms of great familiarity I say judge I'm going to build a buster and whip the crowd I have lived about long enough in that little nine by ten hole and I'll be dumbed if I don't show him what I can do I'll have towers and bay windows and piazzers with checkered work all around them and a preservatory and all kinds of new fangled douins may Jane and Anne Liza want that Queen Anne style but I tell them no such squatty things for me they can have all the little window panes and stained glass cart loads on if they want but I'll have the rooms big and high so a feather won't bump his head yes sir I'm in for a smasher and he built a smasher on the site of the old house behind which the Lizzie Anne or what there was left of it was lying and when the house was done and furnished with the most gaudy and expensive furniture he could find in Boston and New York he said it had just as good a right to a name as anybody there was Tracy Park and grassy spring and Briar Hill and calling wood and he'd be dumbed if he'd be out done by any of them he'd like to call it Lizzie Anne he said to Arthur whom he met one day in the park and to whom he began to talk of his new house he'd like to call it Lizzie Anne Arthur the old boat for that craft was the beginning of his being anybody but may Jane and Anne Liza wouldn't hear to it they wanted some new fangled foreign name could Mr. Tracy suggest something how would LeBateau do it is the French for the boat and might cover your difficulty Arthur suggested that's just the checker Lizzie Anne with a new name love love what do you call her Peterkin said and Arthur replied LeBateau yes yes LeBateau little suit may Jane tip top beats all what high notions she's got why I don't suppose she anymore remembers that she used to wash Miss Atherton stun steps than you remember something that never happened do you Arthur thought very likely that she did not and Peterkin went on you say it means a boat in French canal do you suppose Arthur did not think it mattered what boat and Peterkin continued LeBateau sounds droll but I like it I'll see an engraver today but how do you spell that plaguey thing Arthur wrote it on a slip of paper which she handed to Peterkin who began slowly L E L E B A T B A T LeBate why what in thunder that ain't LeBateau take nothing with an amused smile Arthur explained that the pronunciation of French words had very little to do with the way they were spelled then very carefully pronouncing the name several times and making Peterkin repeated after him he said goodbye and walked away thinking to himself there are bigger lunatics outside the asylum than I am but it is not possible the fool will adopt that name but the fool did may Jane approved and Billy did not care provided his father would pronounce it right and so in less than a week LeBateau was on Peterkin's doorplate and on the two gate posts of the entrance to his grounds and may Jane's visiting cards bore the words Mrs. Peterkin LeBateau Fridays she had her days now like Mrs. Atherton and Mrs. St. Claire and Mrs. Tracy and had her butler to and her maid and her carriage and after the house was finished and furnished in a style that reminded one of a theater it was so gorgeous and gay Peterkin concluded to have a coat of arms for his carriage and remembering how Arthur had helped him in a former dilemma he sought him again and told him his trouble that Lubber to he called it to now went down like hotcakes and was just the thing he said and now I want some picture for my carriage door to kinder mark me and show who I am you know what I mean Arthur thought a puffball would represent Peterkin better than anything else but he replied yes I know you want a coat of arms which I'll suggest your early days when I was floundering to get up just so Peterkin interrupted him you've hit it square now I'd like a picture of the Lizzie and as she was but may Jane won't hear to what do you say square Arthur tingled to his fingertips at this familiarity from a man whom he detested and whom he would like to turn from his door but the man was in his house and in his private room tilting back in a delicate Swiss chair which Arthur expected every moment to see broken to pieces and which finally did go down with a crash as the burly figure settled itself a little more firmly upon the frail thing I'll be dumbed if I ain't broken at all to shivers the terrified Peterkin exclaimed as he struggled to his feet and looked with dismay upon the debris what's the damage he continued taking out his pocketbook and ostentatiously showing a fifty dollar bill money cannot replace the chair which once adorned the salon of Madame de Stoll Arthur said put up your purse for heaven's sake never again tip back in your chair it is a vulgar trick of which no gentleman would be guilty ordinarily Peterkin would have resented language like this but he was just now too anxious to curry favor with Arthur to show any anger and he answered meekly that's so square taint good manners and I know it as well as the next one I'm awful sorry about the chair and think maybe I could get it mended I'd like to try never mind the chair Arthur said with an impatient gesture try another and a stronger one and let's go back to business you want a painted panel for your carriage how will this do and he rapidly sketched a green pleasant meadow with a canal running through it and on the canal a boat drawn by one horse which a barefoot alpish looking boy was driving I swore square you're a Trump you be Peterkin exclaimed slapping him on the back you've hit it to a dot that's the Lizzie and and that their boy is BJ Jones driving the old spavin horse you are to have me somewhere in sight cussing the hands as I generally was and may Jane on deck hang in her clothes to dry could you manage that Arthur thought he could but suggested that Mrs. Peterkin might not like to be made so conspicuous possibly she will not like this drawing at all she may think it too suggestive of other days that's so Peterkin assented a little sadly and if she don't take to it the old Harry can't make her she used to be the meekest of wives them days she dried her clothes on the Lizzie and but she don't knock under what I said since we risen the world and and Lizzie is worse than her mother but I'll show this to the old woman and let you know may Jane did not approve neither did Billy no use they said to flaunt the canal a horse driver and all in people's faces and so the discomfited Peterkin went to Arthur again and told him the fat was all in the fire and may Jane on a rampage try again square but give us some kind of water and craft so Arthur good humoredly changed the canal into a gracefully flowing river in a bend of which in the distance there was just visible a boat which was a cross between a gondola and one of those little dangerous things so common on the lakes of Wisconsin standing in the bow of the boat with folded arms as if calmly contemplating the scenery was the figure of a man supposed to be Peterkin who swore he'd keep this picture in spite of them and as his wife did not seriously object the sketch was transferred in oil to a panel and inserted in the carriage which when drawn by two shining bays and driven by a colored man in long coat and tall hat with Peterkin sitting back in it with all the pride and pompousness of a two millionaire and may Jane at his side covered with diamonds attracted general attention and comment Billy seldom patronized the carriage but frequently rode beside it talking to his mother of whom he was very fond and taking off his hat to every person he met whether old or young rich or poor Billy is an idiot but very kind hearted people said of him and in truth he was popular with everybody especially the men in his father's employee who all went to him for favors or for an increase of wages for if Billy had any business it was in his father's office where he pretended to look after matters and keep the book straight such had been the growth of Peterkin during the past ten years he had got clean to the front he said and was hobnobbin with square Harrington and judge St. Clair and the Tracy's all of whom shrugged their shoulders and laughed at him in secret but treated him civilly to his face for deny it as we may money has a mighty power and will open many a door which nothing else could move course and ignorant as a horse but not so bad after all was what people said of him now and in fact Peterkin had improved and softened a good deal with the accession of wealth nobody gave so lavishly to everything as he did while to his employees he was always generous and considerate once he thought to join the church thinking that would add to his respectability but when talked with by his clergyman he showed himself so lamentably deficient in every necessary qualification that he was advised to wait a while which he did but he rented the most expensive pew and carried the largest prayer book of anyone and read the loudest and kept his head down the longest so long indeed that he once went to sleep and had quite a little nap before his wife nudged him and told him to get up good lord deliver us was his ejaculation as he sprang to his feet and adjusting his glasses looked fiercely round at the amused congregation so far as money and display were concerned the st. Clairs and mrs. Atherton had not kept up with Peterkin on the contrary as he grew into society they gradually withdrew until at last dolly Tracy had it all her own way and looked upon herself as the lady par excellence of the town she had been to Europe she had seen the queen she had had some dresses made it worse she had picked up a few french words which she used on all occasions with what little regard to their appropriateness she had decorated a tea set and was as unlike the dolly Tracy whom we first knew as a person well could be everything had gone well with her and scarcely a sorrow had touched her for though poor stupid Jack had slept for five years in the Tracy lot with only the woman of the trap house for company he was so near an imbecile when he died that his death was a blessing rather than otherwise Tom with his fine figure his fastidious taste in aristocratic notions was the apple of her eye and to death they all fit she said when her french fever was at its height and she wished to impress her hearers with her knowledge of the language while except for her ill health and the bat taste she manifested in her liking for Harold society mod was to death they all fit to she had no dread of Gretchen now even Arthur had ceased to talk of her and was as a rule very quiet and contented only her husband troubled her for with the passing years his silence and abstraction had increased until now it was nothing remarkable for him to go days without speaking to anyone unless he were first spoken to his hair was white as snow which made him look years older than he really was while the habit he had always of walking with his head down added to his apparent years during the time mod was in Europe he grew old very fast for mod was all that made life and durable to see her in her young beauty flitting about the house and grounds like a bright bird whose nets is high up in some sheltered spot where the storms never come was some compensation for what he had done but when she was gone there came over him such a sense of loneliness and desolation that at times he feared less he should become crazier than his brother who really appeared to be improving although the strange forgetfulness of past events still clung to and increased upon him he did not now remember ever to have said that Gretchen was with him in the ship or on the train or that he had sent the carriage so many times to meet her and when he spoke of her which he seldom did to anyone except to Jerry it was as of one who had died years ago occasionally in the winter when a wild storm was raging like that which had shaken the house and bent the evergreens the night Jerry came he would tie a knot of crepe upon the picture but would give no reason for it when questioned except to say can't you see it is a badge of mourning for a week or more it would remain there and then he would put it carefully away to be again brought out when the night was wild and stormy it was during Maud's absence that the two brothers became more intimate than they had been before since Arthur first came home and it happened in this wise every day for months after Maud and his wife went away Frank spent hours alone in his private room sometimes doing nothing but oftener looking at the photograph of Gretchen and the Bible with the marked passages and the handwriting around it then he would take out the letter about which Jerry had been so anxious and examine it carefully studying the address which he knew by heart and beginning at last to arrange the letters in alphabetical order as far as he could and to try to imitate them it was a difficult process but little by little with the assistance of a German textbook of Maud's which he found he learned the alphabet and began to form words then put them together and then to read gradually the work began to have a great fascination for him and he went to Arthur one day and asked for some assistance never too old to learn he said and as the house is like a tomb without Maud I have actually taken up German but find it uphill business without a teacher will you help me to be sure to be sure Arthur cried brightening up at once and bringing out on the instant such a pile of books as appalled Frank and made him wish to withdraw his proposition but Arthur was eager and persistent and patient and had never respected his brother one half as much as when he was stammering over the German pronunciation which he could not well master but he learned to read with a tolerable degree of fluency and to speak a little too while he could understand nearly all Arthur said to him do you think I could get along in Germany he asked his brother one day certainly you could Arthur replied are you going there if you do go to Wiesbaden and inquire for Gretchen how she died and where she is buried I should have gone long ago only I dreaded the ocean voyage so confoundedly and then I forget so badly when are you going oh I don't know as ever Frank answered quickly and yet in his heart there was the firm resolve to go to Wiesbaden and hunt up Marguerite Henrich's friends if possible and if I find them and find my suspicions correct what shall I do then he asked himself over and over again and once made answer to his question I will either make restitution or drown myself in the Rhine Jerry was a constant source of misery to Frank and yet when she was at home he was always managing to have her at the parkhouse where he could see her and watch her as she moved like a young queen through the handsome rooms or froliced with mud upon the lawn she is surely Gretchen's daughter and Arthur's too he would say to himself as he too detected in her face the likeness to his brother which had so startled Jerry in the mirror he was always exceedingly kind to her and almost a sprout of her success at Vassar as Arthur himself and on the day when she was expected home he went two or three times to the cottage in the lane carrying fruit and flowers and even offering things more substantial which however were promptly declined by Mrs. Crawford who had signified her intention to take nothing more for Jerry's board the girl pays for herself our will she said and it is Harold's wish and mine to be independent but she accepted the fruit and the flowers and wondered a little to see Frank so excited and nervous and anxious that everything should be done to make Jerry's final homecoming as pleasant as possible it was a lovely afternoon when the young ladies from Vassar were expected but the train was half an hour late and the carriage from grassy spring and the carriage from Lebatot had waited so long that both coachmen were asleep upon their respective boxes when at last the whistle was heard among the hills telling that the cars were coming the Tracy carriage was not there though twenty minutes before train time Maude had come down in the Victoria and on learning of the delay had been driven rapidly to the cottage in the lane from which she had not returned when at last the cars stopped before the station and the young people alighted upon the platform which with their luggage seemed at once to be full your checks miss the coachman from grassy spring said to Nina as he touched his hat respectfully to her and his words were repeated to Annalisa by the servant from Lebatot but Jerry held hers in her hand with a rueful look of disappointment on her face as she looked in vain for Harold or Maude to greet her for a single moment the difference between her position and that of Nina and Annalisa struck her like a blow and she thought to herself for them everything for me nothing then she rallied and passing her checks to the baggage master said to him if there is a boy here with a car to our wheelbarrow let him take my trunks otherwise send them by express I see there is no one to meet me yes but they is coming the man replied with a significant nod in the direction where a cloud of dust was visible as the Tracy Victoria came rapidly up to the station with Maude and Harold in it the former was standing up and waving her parasol to the party upon the platform while almost before the carriage stopped Harold sprang out and had both of Jerry's hands in his and held them as he told her how glad he was to welcome her home again he looked tired and flurried and did not seem quite himself but there could be no doubt that he was glad for the gladness shown in his eyes and in his face and Jerry felt it in the warm clasp of his hands which she noticed with a pang were brown and calloused and bruised in some places as if they had of late been used to harder toil than usual but she had not much time for thought before Maude's arms were around her neck and Maude was standing on tiptoe and drawing down her face which she covered with kisses and between laughing and crying exclaimed you darling old Jerry how glad I am to see you again and how tall and grand you have grown why I don't much more than come to your shoulder see Harold how Jerry outshines me and she lifted her sparkling face to Harold who looked down at her as a brother might have looked at an only sister of whom he was very fond how pretty and pecan she was with her brilliant complexion and her dark eyes and how stylish she looked in the Paris gown of embroidered linen which fitted her perfectly and the big hat which turned up just enough on the side to give her a saucy coquette a share as she flitted from one to another kissing Nina twice and Eliza once and shaking hands with all the young men except Tom who put his in his pockets out of her way he could not stand mods gosh he said and he watched her with a half sneering smile as she tiptoed around for it always seemed as if she walked upon her toes curtsying as she walked I meant to have been here before the train she said to Jerry and I was here about an hour ago but when I found the cars were late I drove over to tell Harold as time with him was everything how we did drive though when we heard the whistle come jump in she continued as she herself stepped into the Victoria jump in and I will take you home in a jiffy it won't hurt Hal to walk although he is awful tired but I would rather walk take Harold if he is so tired Jerry said in a tone she did not quite intend oh Jerry Harold exclaimed in a low pained voice I am not tired let us both walk and going to mod he said something to her which Jerry could not hear except the words don't you think it better so of course I do it was stupid in me not to see it before was mods reply as she laid her hand on Harold's arm where it rested a moment while she said her goodbyes and Jerry saw the little ungloved hand touching Harold so familiarly and thought how small and white and thin it was with the blue vein showing so distinctly upon it and then she looked more closely at mod herself and saw with a pang how sick she looked in spite of the bright color in her cheeks which came and went so fast there was a pallor about her lips and about her nose while her ears were almost transparent and her neck was so small that Jerry felt she could have clasped it in one hand mod she cried pressing close to the young girl as Harold stepped aside mod are you ill you are pale everywhere except your cheeks which are like roses no no mod answered quickly as if she did not like the question not sick a bit only a little tired we have been at work real hard Hal and I but he will tell you about it and now goodbye again for I must go I shall be around in the morning goodbye oh Tom I forgot we have company to dinner tonight a Mr. and Mrs. Hart who are friends of Mrs. Atherton and have just returned from Germany bringing Fred's sister Marion with them she has been abroad at school for years and is very nice I ought to have told Fred and Nina how stupid in me but they will find their invitations when they get home now hop in quick and don't tear my flounces you are so awkward I suppose Hal never tears your flounces Tom said as he took his seat beside his sister and gave Jerry a look which sent the blood in great waves to her face and neck for it seemed to imply that he understood the case and suppose that she did too the St. Clair carriage had driven away with Nina and Dick and Fred and the carriage from the Betot had gone to when at last Jerry and Harold started down the road and along the highway to the gate through which the strange woman had once passed with the baby Jerry in her arms the baby was a young woman now tall and erect with her headset high as she walked silently by Harold's side until the gate was reached and they passed into the shaded lane where they were hidden from the sight of anyone upon the main road leading to the park house then stopping suddenly she faced squarely toward her companion and said why didn't you come to commencement Tom Tracy said you were shingling a roof and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you end of chapters twenty-seven and twenty-eight chapters twenty-nine and thirty of Gretchen by Mary Jane Holmes this Libra Vox recording is in the public domain chapter twenty-nine why Harold did not go to Vassar the cottage in the lane was not very pretentious and all its rooms were small and low and upon the ground floor except the one which Jerry had occupied since she had grown too large for the crib by Mrs Crawford's bed in this room in which there was but one window Jerry kept all her possessions her playthings and her books and the trunk and carpet bag which had been found with her here she had cut off her hair and slept on the floor to see how it would seem and here she had enacted many a play in which the scenes and characters were all of the past for the cold and winter she did not care at all and when in summer the nights were close and hot she drew her little bed to the open window and fell asleep while thinking how warm she was that she ought to have a better room never occurred to her and never had she found a word of fault or repined at her humble surroundings so different from those of her girlfriends only as she grew taller she had sometimes laughingly said that if she kept on she should not much longer be able to stand upright in her den as she called it I hit my head now everywhere except in the middle she once said I wonder if we can't some time manage to raise the roof the words were spoken thoughtlessly and almost immediately forgotten by Jerry but Harold treasured them up and began at once to devise ways and means to raise the roof and give Jerry a room more worthy of her this was just after he had left college and there was hanging over him his debt to Arthur and the support of his grandmother the first did not particularly disturb him for he knew that Arthur would wait any length of time while the latter seemed but a trifle to a strong robust young man Mrs. Crawford was naturally very economical and could make one dollar go farther than most people could too so that very little suffice for their daily wants when Jerry was away I must earn money somehow Harold thought and must seek work where I can do the best even if it is from Peterkin so swallowing his pride he went to Peterkin's office and asked for work once before when a boy of 18 and sorely pressed he had done the same thing and met with a rebuff from the foreman who said to him gruffly no sir we don't want no more boys least wise gentlemen boys we've had enough of them try tether furnace Mr. Warner is always taken all kinds of trash out of pity but the Warner factory where Harold had once worked was full of boys whom the kind hearted employer had taken in and there was no place for Harold so he waited a while until Jerry needed a new dress and his grandmother a bonnet and then he tried Peterkin again and this time with success yes take him Peterkin said to his foreman take him and put him to the Emory wheel that's the place for such upstarts that'll take the starch out of him double quick he's a bad egg he isn't proud as Lucifer I don't suppose he'd touch my bill or my Anne Lizzie with a 10 foot pole put him to the wheel bad egg bad egg Peterkin had a bitter prejudice against the boy on whose account he had once been turned from the Tracy house and though he had forgiven the Tracy's and would now have voted for Frank for congressmen if he had had the chance he still cherished his animosity against Harold designating him as an upstart and a bad egg who was to be put to the wheel and Harold was put to the wheel until he got a bit of steel in his eye and his hands were cut and blistered but he did not mind the latter so much because Jerry cried over them at night and kissed them in the morning and bait them in Cosmoline and called Peterkin a mean old thing and offered to go herself to the wheel but this Harold only laughed he could stand it he said and a dollar a day was not to be lost he could wear gloves and save his hands but the appearance of gloves was the signal for general hooting and jeering from the boys of his own age who were employed there and who had from the first looked a scans at Harold because they knew how greatly he was their superior and fancied an affront and everything he did and every word he said it was spoken so differently from their own dialect I can't stand it Harold said to Jerry after a week's trial with the gloves I'd rather sweep the streets than be jeered at as I am I don't mind the work I'm getting used to it but the boys are awful why they call me sissy and miss Hastings and all that so Harold left the employee of Peterkin greatly to the chagrin of that functionary who had found him the most faithful boy he had ever had but this was years ago and matters had changed somewhat since then Harold was a man now a graduate from Harvard with an air and dignity about him which commanded respect even from Peterkin who was sitting upon his high stool when Harold came in with his application Billy who was Harold's fast friend was now in the business with his father and as he chanced to be present the thing was soon arranged and Harold received into the office at a salary of twelve dollars per week which was soon increased to fifteen and twenty and at last as the autumn advanced and Harold began to talk of taking the same school in town which he had once before taught he was offered fifteen hundred dollars a year if he would remain as foreman of the office where his services were invaluable but Harold had chosen the law for his profession and as teaching school was more congenial to him than writing in the office and would give him more time for reading law he declined the salary and took the school which he kept for two successive winters going between times into the office whenever his services were needed which was very often as they knew his worth and Billy was always glad to have him there in this way he managed to lay aside quite a little sum of money besides paying his interest to Arthur and when mod came home from Europe in March he felt himself warranted in beginning to raise the roof he was naturally a mechanic and would have made a splendid carpenter he was also something of an architect and sketched upon paper the changes he proposed making the roof was to be raised over Jerry's room there was to be a pretty bay window at the south commanding a view of the calling wood grounds and the river there was to be another window on a side but whether to the east or the west he could not quite decide there was to be a dressing room and a large closet while the main room was to be carried up in the center after the fashion of a church and to be sealed with narrow strips of wood painted alternately with a pale blue and gray he showed the sketch to his grandmother who approved it just as she approved everything he did but suggested that he submit it to mod Tracy who she heard had become an artist and had a studio so he took the plan to mod explaining it to her and saying it was to be a surprise to Jerry when she came home for good in the summer mod was interested and enthusiastic at once and entered heart and soul into the matter making some suggestions which Harold adopted and deciding for him where the extra window was to be placed put it to the east she said for Jerry is always looking toward the rising sun because she says her old home is that way and besides she can see the tramp house she is so fond of for my part I think it is a pokey place and never like to pass it after dark lest I should see the woman standing in the door with the candle in her hand crying for help where was Jerry then I wonder wouldn't that make a very effective picture the storm the open door the frantic woman in it with the candle held high over her head and Jerry clutching her dress behind with her great blue eyes tearing out in the darkness that is the way I have always seen it I mean to paint the picture and hang it in the new room is another surprise to Jerry oh don't Harold said with a shutter Jerry would not like it it almost killed her when she first knew of the cry which Mr. Arthur heard in the light I saw that night she insisted upon knowing everything there was to know and when I told her all the color left her face and for a moment she sat rigid as a stone with a look I shall never forget and then she cried as I never saw anybody cry before this was three years ago and she has never spoken to me of it since Harold's voice trembled as he talked while Maude cried outright the idea of the picture was given up and she went back to the subject of the new room in which she seemed quite as much interested as Harold himself when the roof was raised and the floor laid and the framework of the bay window up she went nearly every day to the cottage to watch the progress of the work and to keep Harold's one hired man up to the mark if he showed the least sign of lagging she is was then a slave driver the man said to Harold one day why if I ever stop to take a jaw or rest my bones a bit she's after me in a jiffy and asks if I don't think I can get so much done in an hour if I work as tight as I can clip it I was never so driving my life and yet both the man and Harold like to see the little lady there walking through the shavings and holding high her dainty skirts as she clambered over piles of boards and shingles or perching herself on the workbench super intended them both and twice by her intervention saved a door from swinging the wrong way and from being a little askew Frank too was almost as much interested in the work as Maude was and once offered his services as did Dick Sinclair and Billy Peterkin that splendid will have a bee and get a lot done Maude said and she pressed into the bee her father and dick and Billy and Fred Raymond and Tom the latter of whom did nothing but find fault saying that the ceiling ought to have been of different woods the floor inlaid in the tops of the windows Cathedral glass and I suppose you will find the money for all that elegance Maude said as she held one end of a board for Harold to nail we are cutting our garment according to the cloth and if you don't like it you'd better go away we do not want any drones in the hive do we Hallie she had taken to addressing him thus familiarly since they had commenced their carpenter work together and Harold smiled brightly upon her as upon a child as she stood on tiptoe at his side Tom went away but he soon came back again for there was for him a peculiar fascination about this room for Jerry and sitting down upon a saw horse he looked on and whittled and smoked while Dick blistered his hands and Fred raised a blood blister by striking his finger with the hammer and Billy ran a huge splinter under his thumbnail then they all went away and Harold was left alone for his man had been obliged to leave and thus the finishing up devolved upon him but he was equal to it the worst was over and all that was now required was hard and constant work if he would accomplish it in time to see Jerry graduated as he greatly wished to do provided he should have enough money left for the trip when everything was paid for but whoever has repaired an old house need not be told that the cost is always greater than was anticipated and that there are a thousand difficulties which reset the unwary workmen and hinder his progress and Harold found it so still he worked on early and late taking no rest except for an hour so in the afternoon when he founded a very pleasant change to walk through the leafy woods so full of summer life and beauty to where Maude waited for him with her sunny face and bright smile which always grew brighter at his coming how could he know what was in her mind he who never dreamed it possible that she of all other girls could fall in love with him that Maude liked him he was sure but he suppose it was mostly for the amusement he afforded her and for the sake of Jerry of whom she was never tired of talking Maude's friendship was very sweet to the young man who had so few means of enjoyment and whose life was one of toil and care and he went blindly toward the pitfall in the distance and began to look forward with a great deal of pleasure to the readings or talks with Maude even though he did not find her very intellectual she amused and rested him and that was something to the tired and overworked man the room was finished inside at last and looked exceedingly cool and pretty in its dress of blue and gray and its two rows of colored glass in each window for Harold had carried out Dom's suggestion in that respect and by going without a new hat and a pair of pants which he needed had managed to get the glass which he set himself for as he said to Maude who assisted him in the matching and arrangement he was a kind of jack of all trades Maude had also helped him to putty up the nail holes and had tried her hand at painting until it gave her a sick headache and she was obliged to quit when Arthur first heard of the raised roof he went down to see it and approving of everything which had thus far been done insisted upon furnishing the room himself but Harold refused saying decidedly that it was his own surprise for Jerry and no one must help him so Arthur went away and told Maude confidentially that the young man Hastings was made of the right kind of stuff and that he liked his independence and that although he should allow him to pay his debt he should deposit the money as fast as received to his credit in the savings bank so that he would eventually get it all you are the darlingest uncle in the world Maude said rubbing her soft cheek against his in that purring way many men like and which made Arthur kiss her and tell her she was a little simpleton but rather nice on the whole and you'll not tell Jerry a word about the room Maude charged him again and again before he went to Vassar not if I can help it was his reply although as the reader knows he came near letting it out twice but held on in time so that the raised roof was still a secret from Jerry when she reached the station and was met by Maude and Harold the room was already with its pretty carpet of blue and drab and a delicate shading of pink in it its cottage furniture simple but suitable its muslin curtains and chintz covered lounge and the willow chair and round table which Maude had insisted upon buying she would have some part in furnishing the room she said and Harold allowed her to get the chair which she put by the window looking toward the trap house and the round table which stood in the bay window with a Japanese ball upon it filled with lilies Harold had gathered in the early morning he had founded impossible to go to Vassar there were so many last things to be done and so little money left in his purse with which to make the journey and as Maude had more confidence in her own taste for the arrangement of furniture than in his she too decided to remain at home and see it through the carpet was not put down until the morning of the day when the young men started for Vassar and it was the noise of the tack hammer which Tom had heard and likened to the shingling of a roof there must be flowers everywhere Jerry's so fond of them Maude said and she brought great baskets full from the park gardens and a costly Dresden vase which Arthur had left for Jerry when he went away together with his card and his photograph and a note in which he had written as follows my dear child welcome home again I wish I could see you when your blue eyes first look upon the room I came so near telling you about Maude would have killed me if I had you have no idea how Harold has worked to get it done and where he got the money is more than I know pinched himself in every way of course he is a noble fellow Jerry but you know that I saw it in your face at Vassar and saw something else too which you may think is a secret we'll talk with you about it when I come home I am off tomorrow for California would like to take you with me maybe I shall meet with robbers in the Yosemite I'd rather like to God bless you Arthur Tracy Uncle Arthur was very queer the day he went away Maude said to Harold as she put the note and the photograph and the card upon the dressing bureau I heard him talking to Gretchen and saying Gretchen Jerry will be here by and by to keep you company while I am gone little Jerry when I first knew her but a great tall Jerry now with the air of a duchess yes Jerry is coming Gretchen how he loves her Jerry I mean and I do not wonder do you Harold's mouth was full of tax and he did not reply but went steadily on with his work until everything was done isn't it lovely and won't she be pleased Maude kept saying as she gave the room a last look and then started for home charging Harold to be on time at the station and to try and not look so tired Harold was very tired for the constant strain of the last few weeks had told upon him and he felt that he could not have gone on much longer and that only for Maude's constant enthusiasm and sympathy he should have broken down before the task was done it was not easy work shingling roofs and nailing down floors and painting ceilings and every bone in his body ached in his hands were callous like a piece of leather and his face looked tired and pale when he at last sat down to rest a while before changing his working suit for one scarcely butter although clean and fresher with no dobs of paint or patches upon it they don't look first rate that's a fact he said to himself as he surveyed his pants and boots and hat and thought what a contrast he should present to the elegant Tom and the other young men at the station but Jerry won't care she understands or will when she sees her new room how pretty it is he added as he stopped a moment to look in and admire it a blind had swung open letting in a flood of hot sunshine and as it was desirable to keep the room as cool as possible Harold went in to close the shutter but something was the matter with both fastening and hinge and he was fixing it when Maude drove up telling him the train was late that's lucky he said for this blind is all out of gear and it took so much time to fix and rehang it that the whistle was heard among the hills a mile away just as he entered the Victoria with Maude and started for the station upon a run chapter 30 the walk home all the way from the station to the gate Harold was trying to think of something to say besides the nearest common places and wondering at Jerry's silence she had seemed glad to see him he had seen that in her eyes and seen there something else which puzzled and troubled him and he was about to ask her what it was when she stopped so abruptly and said why didn't you come to commencement Tom Tracy said you were shingling a roof and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you oh that's it is it Harold said bursting into a laugh that is why you have been so stiff and distant ever since we left the depot that I could not touch you with a ten foot pole well I don't care Jerry replied with a sob in her voice everybody had some friend there but myself you don't know how lonely I felt when I went on the stage and knew there was no home face looking at me and all that crowd I think you might have come anyway but Jerry Harold said laying his hand upon her shoulder as they slowly walked on wait a little before you condemn me utterly I wanted to come quite as much as you wanted to have me I remembered what a help it was to me when I was graduated to see your face in the crowd and know by its expression that you were satisfied I did not suppose you saw me Jerry exclaimed her voice very different in its tone from what it had been at first saw you and Harold's hand tightened its grasp on her shoulder saw you I scarcely saw anyone else except you and Maude who sat beside you I knew you would be there and I looked the room over missing you at first and feeling as if something were wanting to fire me up then when I found you the inspiration came and if I began to flag ever so little I had only to look at your blue eyes and my blood was up again this was a great deal for Harold to say and he felt half frightened when he had said it but Jerry's answer was reassuring oh I didn't know that I am so glad you told me they were close to the tramp house now the walk from the station had been hot and dusty and Jerry was tired so she said to Harold let's go in a moment it looks so cool in there so they went in and Jerry sat down upon a bench while Harold took a seat upon the table and said I suppose you had peels of applause and flowers by the bushel yes Jerry replied applause enough and flowers enough 20 bouquets and baskets and all including yours it was kind in you to send it she did not tell him of the wilted condition of his flowers or that one of the faded roses was expressed between the lids of her Latin grammar Billy gave me a heart of blue forget-me-nots she continued and Tom a book of daisies on a standard of violets what a prig Tom is and what a dandy Billy has grown to be and his timers worse than ever but he is one of the best-hearted fellows in the world Harold said he has been very kind to me yes I know Jerry rejoined quickly he makes his father pay you big wages in the office and gives you a great many holidays that is kind but oh Harold how I hate it all you're being obliged to work for such a man as Peterkin I wish I were rich maybe I shall be someday who knows the great tears were shining in her eyes as she talked and brushing them away she suddenly changed the conversation and said I never come in here that a thousand strange fancies do not begin to flip through my brain and my memory seems stretched to the utmost tension and I remember things a way back in the past before you found me in the carpet bag she was gazing up toward the rafters with a wrapped look on her face as if she were seeing the things of what she was talking and Harold who had never seen her in just this way said to her very softly what do you remember Jerry what do you see she did not move her head or eyes but answered him I see always a sweet pale face to which I can almost give a name a face which smiles upon me and a thin white hand which is laid upon my hair a hand not like those you have told me about and which must have touched me so tenderly that awful night did you ever try to recall a name or a dream which seems sometimes just within your grasp and then baffles all your efforts to retain it yes often Harold said just so it is with me she continued I try to keep the fancies which come and go so fast and which always have reference to the past and some far off country Germany I think Harold I must have been older when you found me than you supposed I was possibly Harold replied you were so small that we thought you almost a baby although you had an old head on your shoulders from the first and could you have spoken our language I believe you might have told us who you were and where you came from perhaps Jerry said I don't know only this as I grow older the things way back come to me and the others fade away the dark woman my mother she spoke the name very low is not half as real to me as the pale sick face on which the firelight shines it is a small house and a low room with a big white stove in the corner and somebody is putting wood in it a dark woman she's tubes and from the open door the firelight falls upon the face in the chair the woman who is always writing when she is not in bed and I am there a little child and when the pale face cries I cry too and when she dies oh Harold but you saw me play it once and wondered where I got the idea I saw it I know I did I was there a part of the play I was the little child then there is a blur a darkness with many people and a crying two voices the dark women's and mine then a river or the sea or both and noisy streets and a storm and cold and you taking me into the sunshine as she talked she had unconsciously laid her hand on Harold's knee and he had taken it in his and was holding it fast when she startled him with the question do you did you ever think did anybody ever think it possible that the woman found dead in here was not my mother not your mother Harold exclaimed dropping her hand in his surprise not your mother what do you mean no disrespect to her Jerry replied the good brave woman who gave her life for me and whose dear hands shielded me from the cold as long as there was power in them to do it I love and reverence her memory as if she had been my mother but Harold do I look at all as she did you saw her here and at the parkhouse think am I like her in anything no Harold answered you are like her in nothing but you may resemble your father yes Jerry said slowly I may oh Harold the spell is on me now so strong that I can almost remember tell me again about that night and the morning what they did at the parkhouse Mr. Arthur I mean he was expecting somebody Gretchen was it not she had grasped his hand again and it was looking into his face as if his answer would be life or death to her and Harold who had no idea what was in her mind and who had never thought that the dark woman was not her mother looked at her wonderingly as he replied yes I remember that he had a fancy in his mind that Gretchen was coming but he has had that fancy so often he said she was in the ship with him and on the train but she wasn't I think Gretchen is dead yes she is dead Jerry said decidedly but tell me again all you know of the time I came Harold told her again what he knew personally of the tragedy and all he remembered to have heard but the thing most real to him was Jerry herself the beautiful girl sitting by his side and astonishing him with her mood and her questions he had seen her often in her spells as he called them when she acted her pantomines and talked to people whom she said she saw but he had only thought of them as the vagaries of a peculiar mind a German mind his grandmother said and he accepted her theory as the correct one he had never seen Jerry as she was now with that look in her face and in her eyes which shown with a strange light as she went on to speak of the things which sometimes came and went so fast and which she tried in vain to retain it had never occurred to him that the woman he had found dead was not her mother and he thought her crazy when she put the question to him but he was a man solid and steady with no vagaries of the brain and not a tithe of the impetuosity and imagination of the girl who asked him at last if he had ever seen anyone whom she resembled he was wondering in a vague kind of way how long she meant to stay there and if the teacakes his grandmother was going to make for supper would be spoiled when she asked the question to which he replied no I don't think I ever did unless it is Gretchen you are some like her but I suppose many German girls have her complexion and hair the answer was not very reassuring and Jerry showed it in her face which was still upturned to Harold who looking down upon it and the earnest wistful expression which had settled there started suddenly as if an arrow had struck him for he saw the likeness Jerry had seen in the glass and taking her face between both his hands he studied it intently while the possibility of the thing kept growing upon him making him colder and fainter than Jerry herself had been when she looked into the mirror what if it were so he said to himself while everything seemed slipping away from him but mostly Jerry who if it were so would be separated from him by a gulf he could not pass for what would the daughter of Arthur Tracy care for him the poor boy whose life had been one fight with poverty and whose worn shabby clothes on which the full western sunlight was falling told plainer than words of the poverty which still held him in thrall Jerry he cried rising to his feet and letting the hands which had clasped her face drop down to her shoulders which they pressed tightly as if he thus would keep her with him oh Jerry you are like Arthur Tracy or you were when you looked at me so earnestly but it is gone now do you have you thought that Gretchen was your mother he was pale as a corpse and Jerry was the calmer of the two as she told him frankly all she had thought and felt since Arthur's visit to her I meant to tell you she said though not quite so soon but when I came in here I could not help it things crowded upon me so it may be and probably is all a fancy but there is something in my babyhood different from the woman who died and when I am able to do it I am going to vis-padan for that is where Gretchen lived and where I believe I came from and if there is anything I shall find it oh Harold I may not be Gretchen's daughter but if I am more than a peasant girl if anything good comes of my search my greatest joy will be that I can share with you who have been so kind to me I will gladly give you and grandma every daughter I may ever have and then I should not pay you there is nothing owing me Harold said the pain in his heart and his fear of losing her growing less as she talked you have brought me nearly all the happiness I have ever known for when I was a boy and every bone ached with the hard work I had to do the thought that Jerry was waiting for me at home that her face would greet me at the window or in the door made the labor light and now that I am a man he paused a moment and Jerry's head duped a little for his voice was very low and soft and she waited with a beating heart for him to go on now that I am a man life would be nothing to me without you was this a declaration of love it almost seemed so and but for a thought of mod Jerry might have believed it was such and led him on to something more definite as it was her heart gave a great bound of joy which showed itself on her face as she replied if I make your life happier I am glad for never had a poor unknown girl so good and true a brother as I but come I have kept you here too long and grandma must be wondering where we are yes and supper will be spoiled Harold said as he followed her to the door we are to have it in the back porch where it is so cool and to have tea cakes with strawberries from our own vines and cream from our own cow or rather your cow did I write you that she had a splendid calf which we call Clovertop they had come back to common places now Jerry's clairvoyant spell had passed and she was herself again simple Jerry Crawford walking along the familiar path and talking of the cow which Frank Tracy had given her when it was a sickly calf whose mother had died she had taken it home and nursed it so carefully that it was now a healthy little Jersey whom she called Nanny a funny name for a cow Harold had said and she had replied yes but it keeps repeating itself in my brain I have known a Nanny sometime sure and may as well perpetuate the name in my bossy as anywhere Nanny was in a little enclosure by the side of the lane and at Harold's call she came to the fence over which she put her face for the caress she was sure to get while Clovertop kicked up her heels and acted as if she too understood and was glad Jerry had come oh it is so pleasant everywhere and I am so glad to be home again Jerry said as her eyes went rapidly from one thing to another until at last they fell upon the raised roof looking so new and yellow in the sunlight end of chapters 29 and 30