"Pshaw! he won't hurt her. Charles will come pretty soon, and I'll send him up. Don't look so scared; he is harmless," the cook said to Harold, who, in a wild state of nervous fear, went back to the cherry trees, where he could listen and hear the first scream which should proclaim Jerry's danger.
But none came, and could he have looked into the room where Jerry stood, he would have been amazed.
As Arthur lifted Jerry through the window, and put her down upon the floor, he said to her:
"Take off that bonnet and let me look at you."
She obeyed, and stood before him with an eager, questioning expression in her blue eyes, which looked at him so fearlessly. Arthur knew perfectly well who she was, but something about her so dazed and bewildered him that for a moment he could not speak, but regarded her with the hungry, wistful look of one longing for something just within his reach, but still unattainable.
"Do you like me?" Jerry asked, at last.
"Like you?" he replied. "Yes. Why did you not come to me sooner?"
And, stooping, he kissed the cherry-stained mouth as he had never kissed a child before.
Sitting down upon the lounge, he took her in his lap and said to her again:
"Who are you, and where did you come from? I know your name is Jerry, which is a strange one for a girl, and I know you live with Mrs. Crawford, but before that night where did you live? Where did you come from?"