"Detchen," she repeated, with a little hesitancy. "Vat the name was? Say again."
He said it again, and over the child's face there came a puzzled expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all her efforts, and that evening Mrs. Crawford heard her saying to herself, "Detchen, Detchen, who am she?"
Jerry had seen Maude Tracy many times, and had admired her greatly, with her pretty white dresses and costly embroideries; and once, at church, when Maude passed near where she was standing, she stood back as far as possible and held her plain gingham dress aside, as if neither it nor herself had any right to come in contact with so superior a being. Of Maude's home she knew nothing, except that it was a place to be admired and gazed at breathlessly at a respectful distance. But she was going there at last with Harold, who had permission to gather cherries for his grandmother from some of the many trees which grew upon the place.
It was a hot morning in July, and the air seemed thunderous and heavy when she set off on what to her was as important an expedition as is a trip to Europe to an older person. She wanted to wear her pink gingham dress, the one kept sacred for Sunday, and had even hoped that she might be allowed to display her best straw hat with the blue ribbons and cluster of apple blossoms. She had no doubt that she should go into the house and see the crazy man, and Mrs. Tracy, who she heard wore silk stockings every day, and she wished to be suitably attired for the occasion.
But Mrs. Crawford dispelled her air-castles by telling her that she was only to go into the side yard where the cherry trees were, and that she must be very quiet, so as not to disturb Mr. Arthur, whose windows looked that way. To wear her pink dress was impossible, as she would get it stained with the juice of the cherries, while the best hat was not for a moment to be thought of.
So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked, long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her to wear on a cherry expedition. A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide cape covered her head when she started from the cottage, with her tin pail on her arm; but no sooner was she in the path which led to the park than the obnoxious bonnet was removed and was swinging on her arm, while she was admiring the shadow which her long bright curls made in the sunshine as she shook her head from side to side.
To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain. Passionately fond of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in Mrs. Crawford's old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was "awful handsome," she had felt a pride in it, and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford's asseverations that "Handsome is that handsome does" could not destroy. Maude Tracy's hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the advantage over her.
"I do hope we shall see her," she said to Harold, as she danced along. "Do you think we shall?"
Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she would speak to them, he said.
"Why not?" Jerry asked, and he replied: