The room was all ready, with its pretty carpet of blue and drab, and a delicate shading of pink in it; its cottage furniture simple, but suitable; its muslin curtains, and chintz-covered lounge, and the willow chair and round table, which Maude had insisted upon buying. She would have some part in furnishing the room, she said, and Harold allowed her to get the chair, which she put by the window looking toward the Tramp House, and the round table, which stood in the bay-window, with a Japanese bowl upon it filled with lilies Harold had gathered in the early morning. He had found it impossible to go to Vassar, there were so many last things to be done, and so little money left in his purse with which to make the journey, and as Maude had more confidence in her own taste for the arrangement of furniture than in his, she, too, decided to remain at home and see it through. The carpet was not put down until the morning of the day when the young men started for Vassar, and it was the noise of the tack hammer which Tom had heard and likened to the shingling of a roof.
"There must be flowers everywhere, Jerrie is so fond of them," Maude said; and she brought great baskets full from the park gardens, and a costly Dresden vase, which Arthur had left for Jerrie when he went away, together with his card and his photograph, and a note in which he had written as follows:
"My Dear Child:—
"Welcome home again. I wish I could see you when your blue eyes first look upon the room I came so near telling you about. Maude would have killed me if I had. You have no idea how Harold has worked to get it done, and where he got the money is more than I know. Pinched himself in every way, of course. He is a noble fellow, Jerrie. But you know that. I saw it in your face at Vassar, and saw something else, too, which you may think is a secret. Will talk with you about it when I come home. I am off to-morrow for California. Would like to take you with me. Maybe I shall meet with robbers in the Yosemite. I'd rather like to. God bless you!
"Arthur Tracy."
"Uncle Arthur was very queer the day he went away," Maude said to Harold, as she put the note, and the photograph, and the card upon the dressing-bureau. "I heard him talking to Gretchen, and saying, 'Gretchen, Jerrie will be here by-and-by, to keep you company while I am gone—little Jerrie when I first knew her, but a great, tall Jerrie now, with the air of a duchess. Yes, Jerrie is coming, Gretchen.' How he loves her—Jerrie, I mean; and I do not wonder, do you?"
Harold's mouth was full of tacks and he did not reply, but went steadily on with his work until everything was done.
"Isn't it lovely, and won't she be pleased!" Maude kept saying, as she gave the room a last look and then started for home, charging Harold to be on time at the station and to try and not look so tired.
Harold was very tired, for the constant strain of the last few weeks had told upon him, and he felt that he could not have gone on much longer, and that only for Maude's constant enthusiasm and sympathy he should have broken down before the task was done. It was not easy work, shingling roofs, and nailing down floors, and painting ceilings, and every bone in his body ached, and his hands were calloused like a piece of leather, and his face looked tired and pale when he at last sat down to rest awhile before changing his working suit for one scarcely better, although clean and fresher, with no daubs of paint or patches upon it.
"They don't look first-rate, that's a fact," he said to himself, as he surveyed his pants, and boots, and hat, and thought what a contrast he should present to the elegant Tom and the other young men at the station. "But Jerrie won't care; she understands, or will, when she sees her new room. How pretty it is!" he added, as he stopped a moment to look in and admire it.
A blind had swung open, letting in a flood of hot sunshine, and as it was desirable to keep the room as cool as possible, Harold went in to close the shutter. But something was the matter with both fastening and hinge, and he was fixing it when Maude drove up, telling him the train was late.
"That's lucky," he said, "for this blind is all out of gear;" and it took so much time to fix and rehang it that the whistle was heard among the hills a mile away, just as he entered the Victoria with Maude and started for the station upon a run.