Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

Then, before he could stop her, she sprang out upon the ladder, and went down faster than she had come up, leaving the pail of cherries upon the window-sill, and leaving, too, in Arthur's breast a tumult of emotions which he could not define.

That night, when Frank, who had heard in much alarm of Jerry's visit to his brother, went up to see him, he found him more cheerful and natural than he had seen him in weeks. As Frank expected, his first words were of the little girl who had come to him through the window and left him the cherries, of which he said he had eaten so many that he feared they might make him sick. What did Frank know of the child? What had he learned of her history? Of course he had made enquiries everywhere?

It was just in the twilight, before the gas was lighted, and so Arthur did not see how his brother's face flamed at first and then grew white as he recapitulated what the reader already knows, dwelling at length upon the enquiries he had made in New York, all of which had been fruitless. There was the name Jerrine on the child's clothing, he said and the initials 'N.B.' on that of her mother, who was evidently French, although she must have come from Germany.'

'Yes,' Arthur replied, 'the child is a German, and interests me greatly. Her face and something in her voice has haunted me all the afternoon. Was there nothing in that trunk or the carpet-bag which would be a clue?'

'Nothing,' Frank replied, although it seemed to him it was the shadow speaking for him, or at least putting the lie into his mouth. There were articles of clothing, all very plain, and a picture book printed at Leipsic, I can get that for you if you like, though it tells nothing unless it he that the mother lived in Leipsic.'

Frank talked very rapidly, and laid so much stress on Leipsic, that Arthur got an idea that Jerry had actually come from there, just as his brother meant he should, and he began to speak of the town and recall all he knew of it.

'I was never there but once,' he said, 'for although I spent a great deal of time in Germany, it was mostly in Heidleberg and Wiesbaden. Oh, that is lovely,—Wiesbaden—and nights now, when I cannot sleep, I fancy that I am there again, in the lovely park, and hear the music of the band, and see the crowds of people strolling through the grounds, and I am there with them, though apart from the rest, just where a narrow path turns off from a bridge, and a seat is half hidden from view behind the thick shrubberies. There I sit again with Gretchen, and feel her hand in mine and her dear head on my arm. Oh, Gretchen—'

There was a sob now in his voice, and he seemed to be talking to himself rather than to his brother, who said to him:

'Gretchen lived in Wiesbaden, then?'

'Yes; but for heaven's sake pronounce it with a V, and not a W, and in two syllables instead of three,' Arthur answered, pettishly, his ear offended as it always was with a discordant sound or mispronounciation.