"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 Jerrie in the mirror.
He was always exceedingly kind to her, and almost as proud 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 Jerrie's board.
"The girl pays for herself, or 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 Jerrie's final home-coming 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 Le Bateau 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 Ann Eliza by the servant from Le Bateau.
But Jerrie 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 Ann Eliza 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 cart or a wheelbarrow, let him take my trunks, otherwise, send them by express, I see there is no one to meet me."