'Lost now forever and ever, but if Maude is happy I can bear it.'
CHAPTER XXIV.
JERRIE—NINE YEARS LATER.
She spelled her name with an ie now, instead of a y. She was nineteen years old; she had been a student at Vassar for four years, together with Nina St. Claire and Ann Eliza Peterkin, and in July was to be graduated with the highest honors of her class. In her childhood, when we knew her as little Jerry, she had been very small, but at the age of twelve she suddenly shot up like an arrow, and had you first seen her, with her back to you, you might have said she was very tall, but had you waited till she turned her face toward you, or walked across the floor, you would have thought that if an eighth of an inch were taken from her height it would spoil her splendidly developed form. Her school companions called her the Princess, she was so tall and straight, and graceful in every movement, with that sweet graciousness of manner which won all hearts to her and made her a general favorite. Whether she spelled her name with an ie or a y and stood five feet six or four feet five, she was the same Jerry who had defended Harold against Tom Tracy, and been ready to go to prison, if need be, for Mr. Arthur. Frank, unselfish, truthful, and original, she had been as a child, with perhaps a little too much pride in her hair, which she hid once cut off to see how it would seem, and she was original, and truthful, and unselfish now, with a pardonable pride in her luxuriant tresses, which lay in waves upon her finely-shaped head and glistened in the sunlight like satin of a golden hue. But nothing could spoil Jerrie, not even the adulation of her friends or the looking-glass which told her she was beautiful, just as Nina St. Claire told her every day.
'Yes; I am not blind, and I know that I am rather good-looking,' she once said to Nina, 'and I am glad, for, as a rule, people like pretty things better than ugly ones, but I am not an idiot to think that looks are everything, and I don't believe I am very vain. I used to be though, when a child, but Harold gave me so many lectures upon vanity that I should not do credit to his teachings were I now to be proud of what I did not do myself.'
'But Harold thinks you are beautiful,' Nina replied.
'He does? I did not know that. When did he say so?' Jerrie asked; with kindling eyes and a quick, sideways turn of her head, of which she had a habit when startled by some sudden emotion.
'He said so last vacation, when we were home, and I had that little musicale, and you played and sang so divinely, and wore that dress of baby-blue which Mr. Arthur gave you, with the blush-rose, in your belt.' Nina said; 'I was so proud of you and so was mamma and Mrs. Atherton. You remember there were some New Yorkers there who were visiting Mrs. Grace, and I was glad for them to know that we had some talent, and some beauty, too, in the country; and Harold was proud, too. I don't think he ever took his eyes off you from the time you sat down to the piano until you left it, and when I said to him, "Doesn't she sing like an angel, and isn't the lovely?" he replied: "I think my sister Jerry has the loveliest face I ever saw, and that blue dress is very becoming to her."'
'Wasn't that rather a stiff speech to make about his sister?' Jerry said, with a slight emphasis upon the last word, as she walked away, leaving Nina to wonder if she were displeased.