'Poor little waif! I wonder where she came from, or what will become of her?'
'Then resuming his walk, he forgot all about the little waif, until startled by a voice which rang, clear and bell-like, through the rooms:
'Mr. Crazyman! Mr. Crazyman! don't you want some cherries?'
It was not so much the words as something in the tone, the foreign accent, the ring like a voice he never could forget, and which the previous night had called to him in his dreams. And now it was calling again—not in his sleep, but in reality, for he knew he was awake—calling from the adjoining room, which no one could enter without his knowledge.
Mentally weak as he was, and apt to be superstitious, his limbs shook, and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he went toward his sleeping-apartment, from which the voice came again a little louder and more peremptory:
'Mr. Crazyman! where are you? I've brought you some cherries!'
He had reached the door by this time, and saw the pail on the broad window-ledge where Jerry had put it, and to which she was clinging, with her white sun-bonnet just in view.
'Oh, Gretchen! how did you get here?' he said, bounding across the floor, with no thought of Jerry in his mind, no thought of any one but Gretchen, whom he was constantly expecting to come, though not exactly in this way.
'I climbed the ladder to fetch you some cherries, and I'm standing on the toppest stick,' Jerry said, craning her neck until her bonnet fell back, disclosing to view her beautiful face flushed with excitement, and her bright, wavy hair, which, moist with perspiration, clung in masses of round curls to her head and forehead.
'Great Heaven!' Arthur exclaimed, as he stood staring at the wide-open blue eyes confronting him so steadily. 'Who are you, and where did you come from?'