It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's thoughts, but once, as she passed near him, she dropped her rake, and going up to him, wiped his forehead with her apron, and, kissing him fondly, said to him:
'Poor, tired boy, is your head awful? You look as if you wanted to vomit? Do you?'
'No, Jerry,' Harold answered, laughingly. 'I am not as bad as that. I was only thinking and wishing that I were rich and could sometime give you and grandma a home as handsome as Tracy Park. How would you like it?'
'First-rate, if you were there,' Jerry replied; 'but if you were not I shouldn't like it at all. I never mean to live anywhere without you; because, you know, I am your little girl, the one you found in the carpet-bag, and I love you more than all the world, and will love and stand by you forever and ever, amen!'
She said the last so abruptly, and it sounded so oddly, that Harold burst into a laugh, and taking up the rake she had dropped, began his work again, declaring that the headache was gone, and that he was a great deal better.
'Forever and ever, amen!' The words kept repeating themselves over and over in Harold's mind as he walked homeward in the gathering twilight with Jerry hip-pi-ty-hopping at his side, her hand in his, and her tongue running rapidly, as it usually did when with him.
She would 'love and stand by him forever and ever, amen!' It was a singular remark for a child, and in after years, when his sky was the blackest, the words would come back to the man Harold like so many stabs as he whispered in his anguish:
'She has forgotten her promise to "stand by me forever and ever, amen!"'