In less than half an hour this singular message was flying along the wires across the continent, and within a few hours Arthur was following it as fast as the steam horse could take him.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
WHAT THEY WERE DOING AND HAD DONE IN SHANNONDALE.
If the earth had opened suddenly and swallowed up half the inhabitants of Shannondale the other half could not have been more astonished than they were at the news which Peterkin was the first to tell them, and which he had risen very early to do, before some one else should be before him. Irascible and quick-tempered as he was, he was easily appeased, and the fact that Jerrie was Arthur Tracy's daughter changed his opinion of her at once.
'The biggest heiress in the county except my Ann 'Liza, and, by gum, I'm glad on't for her and Arthur. I allus said she was hisen, and by George, to think that I helped her into her fortin, for if I hadn't of knocked that rotten old table down she'd of never found them memoirs,' he said to the first person to whom he communicated the news, and then hurried off to buttonhole and enlighten others, until everybody knew and was discussing the strange story.
Before noon scores of people had found it in their way to walk past the cottage, hoping to catch sight of Jerrie, while several went in and told her how glad they were for her and Mr. Arthur, and looked at her with wondering eyes as if she were not quite the same girl they had known as Jerrie Crawford.
When, the previous night, Mrs. Crawford had listened to the story Jerrie told her after her return from the Park House, she had been for a few moments stupefied with amazement, and had sat motionless on her chair until she felt Jerrie's soft hands upon her head smoothing her silvery hair, and Jerrie's voice said to her:
'Dear grandma, I told you your working days were over, and they are, for what is mine is yours and Harold's, and my home is your home always, so long as you live.'
The poor old lady put her head upon Jerrie's arm and cried hysterically for a moment; then she rallied, and brushing away her tears, kissed the young girl who had been so much to her, and whom for a brief moment she feared she might have lost. Far into the night they sat, talking of the past and the future, and of Harold, who was in Tacoma, where he might have to remain for three or four weeks longer. He had written several times to his grandmother and once to Jerrie, but had made no mention of the diamonds, while in her letters to him Mrs. Crawford had refrained from telling him what some of the people were saying, and the construction they were putting upon his absence. Jerrie had not yet written to him, but, 'I shall to-morrow,' she said, 'and tell him to hurry home, for I need him now, if ever.'