"Maude," she cried, pressing close to the young girl, as Harold stepped aside, "Maude, are you ill? You are pale everywhere except your cheeks, which are like roses."
"No, no," Maude 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 good-by again, for I must go. I shall be round in the morning. Good-by. Oh, Tom, I forgot! We have company to dinner to-night—a Mr. and Mrs. Hart, who are friends of Mrs. Atherton, and have just returned from Germany, bringing Fred's sister, Marian, 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 Jerrie 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 supposed that she did, too.
The St. Claire carriage had driven away with Nina, and Dick, and Fred, and the carriage from Le Bateau had gone, too, when at last Jerrie and Harold started down the road and along the highway to the gate through which the strange woman had once passed with the baby Jerrie in her arms. The baby was a young woman now, tall and erect, with her head set 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 any one 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."
CHAPTER XXIX.
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 Jerrie 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, Jerrie 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 in 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 girl friends. 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."