At this picture of herself Jerrie 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 Maude and Harold, and 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 rouse her, as he was waiting for his breakfast.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MAUDE'S LETTER.
Tracy Park, June —, 18—.
"MY Darling Jerrie:
"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; Jerrie is the lily and you are the rose; you set each other off admirably. I am glad you are so 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 do 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, and that his father was one of the handsomest men 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. Claire—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. Claire, 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. Claire's office, but he comes to read to me for an hour or more nearly every day. He came of his own accord, too, and sometimes I half 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 the Grecian bend. 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 'biskit!' 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, Jerrie; those who know the least are frequently liked 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, Jerrie, 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 white as snow, and he sometimes talks to himself just as Uncle Arthur does. I wonder what ails 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 talks queer 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 as 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 poky little house with the stairs going right up in the room, and such a tiny, stuffy bedroom! I tried to fancy mamma's 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 codfish in the store.