"Out of the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. I told you that once," Jerry said. "Harold found me. I am his little girl. He is out in the cherry tree, and said I must not come up, because you were crazy and would hurt me. You won't hurt me, will you? And be you crazy?"
"Hurt you? No," he answered, as he parted the rings of hair from her brow. "I don't know whether I am crazy or not. They say so, and perhaps I am, when my head is full of bumble-bees."
"Oh-h!" Jerry gasped, drawing back from him. "Can they get out? And will they sting?"
Arthur burst into a merry laugh, the first he had known since he came back to Shannondale. Jerry was doing him good. There was something very soothing in the touch of the little warm hands he held in his, and something puzzling and fascinating, too, in the face of the child. He did not think of a likeness to any one; he only knew that he felt drawn toward her in a most unaccountable manner, and found himself wondering greatly who she was.
"Harold told me there were pictures and marble folks up here with nothing on, and everything, and that's why I comed—that and to bring you some cherries. I like pictures. Can I see them?" Jerry said.
"Yes, you shall see them," Arthur replied; and he led her into the room where Gretchen's picture looked at them from the window.
"Oh, my!" Jerry exclaimed, with bated breath. "Ain't she lovely! Is she God's sister?" and folding her hands together, she stood before the picture as reverently as a devout Catholic stands before a Madonna.
It was some time since Jerry had spoken a word of German, but as she stood before Gretchen's picture old memories seemed to revive, and with them the German word for pretty, which she involuntarily spoke aloud.
Low as was the utterance, it caught Arthur's ear, and grasping her shoulder, he said:
"What was that! What did you say, and where did you learn it?"