Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

She emphasized the 'steal,' and the 'lie,' and the 'sneak,' and the 'mean,' with a kick that made the horse jump a little and quicken his steps.

'Yes,' Frank assented; it would be all she affirmed, and more too, and the man who could do such a thing was wholly unworthy the respect of any one, and ought to be punished to the full extent of the law.

'That's so,' Jerry said, with another emphatic kick and a slight tightening of her arm around the conscience-stricken man, who wondered if he should ever reach the cottage and be free from the clasp of those arms, which seemed to him like bands of fire burning to his soul. 'I'd never speak to him again,' Jerry continued, 'and Mr. Arthur wouldn't either. He is so right-up, and hates a trick. I don't believe, either, that any harm will come to Maude from that letter, as you said. If there does, and Mr. Arthur can fix it, he will, I know, for I shall ask him, and he once told me he would do anything for me, because I look as he thinks Gretchen must have looked when she was a little girl like me.'

They had reached the cottage by this time, where they found Harold in the yard looking up and down the lane for Jerry, whose protracted absence at that hour had caused them some anxiety, even though they were accustomed to her long rambles by herself and frequent absences from home. It was not an unusual thing for her to linger in the Tramp House, even after dark, talking to herself, and Gretchen, and Mah-nee, and her mother and a sick woman, whose face was far back in the past. She was there now, Harold supposed, and this belief was confirmed when Mr. Tracy said to him:

'You see I have picked up your little girl and brought her home. Jump down, Jerry, and good-night to you.'

She was on the ground in an instant, and he was soon galloping toward home, saying to himself:

'I don't believe I can even have a death-bed repentance now. I have told too many lies for that, and more than all, must go on lying to the end. I have sold my soul for a life of luxury, which after all is very pleasant,' he continued, as he drew near the house, which was brilliantly lighted up, while through the long windows of the drawing-room he could see the table, with its silver and glass and flowers, and the cheerful blaze upon the hearth of the fire-place, which Dolly had persuaded Arthur to have built. There was every kind of bric-a-brac on the tall mantel, and Frank saw it as he passed, and saw the colored man moving slowly about the room after the manner of a well-trained servant who understands his business. There was company staying in the house, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond, from Kentucky, father and mother to Fred; and Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire, and Grace Atherton, and Squire Harrington had been invited to dinner, and were already in the dining-room when Frank entered it after a hasty toilet.

He had been out in the country and ridden further than he had intended, he said by way of apology, as he greeted his guests, and then took Mrs. Raymond into dinner, which, with the exception of the soup and fish, was served from side tables. This was Dolly's last new kink, as Frank called it, and Dolly was very fine, in claret velvet, with her new diamonds, which were greatly admired, Grace Atherton declaring that she liked them quite as well as the stolen ones, whose setting was rather passé.

'That is just why I liked them so, because they were old-fashioned; it made them look like heir-looms, and showed that one had always had a family,' Dolly said.

Grace Atherton shrugged her still plump shoulders just a little, and thought of the first call she ever made upon Dolly, when she entered through the kitchen and the lady entertained her in her working-apron!