It was some time since Jerry had spoken a word of German, but as she stood before Gretchen's picture old memories seemed to revive, and with them the German word for pretty, which she involuntarily spoke aloud.
Low as was the utterance, it caught Arthur's ear, and grasping her shoulder, he said:
'What was that? What did you say, and where did you learn it?'
His manner frightened her; perhaps the bumble-bees were coming out, and she drew back from him, forgetting entirely what she had said.
'It was a German word,' he continued, 'and the accent is German, too; can you speak it.'
Unconsciously as he talked, he dropped into that language, and Jerry listened intently, with a strained look on her face, as if trying to recall something which came and went, but went more than it came, if that could be.
'I talked that once,' she said, 'when I lived with mamma; but she is dead. Harold found her, and I put flowers on her grave.'
Half the time she was speaking in German, or trying to, and Arthur listened in amazement, while his interest in her deepened every moment, as he took her through the rooms and showed her 'the marble people with nothing on them,' and the beautiful pictures which adorned his walls.
'How would you like to come and be my little girl?' he asked her at last, when, remembering Harold and the cherries, she told him she must go, and started toward the window as if she would make her egress as she had come in.
'Can Harold come, too? I can't leave Harold,' she said Then, as she caught sight of him still standing at a distance, gazing curiously up at the window through which she had disappeared, she called out, 'Yes Harold; I'm coming. I have seen him and everything, and he did not hurt me. Good-bye!' and she turned toward Arthur with a little nod.