"I shall not hear you spout out your erudition," he said, "for I detest crowds, with the dreadful smell of the rooms. I have gotten the park house tolerably free from odors, 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 Cherry is likely to look as well as any of them."
So Jerrie 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 gewgaws. 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, Cherry, 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 nor 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 Jerrie 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 Maude and 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, Jerrie 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 composedly.
"You are white as your dress," he said. "It is this confounded hot room; let us sit nearer the window."