“Oh, I don’t think she’s the sort of girl to set herself so to win a prize when she’s been so short a time at school with you all,” said Jerry.
“No; perhaps not. Of course it can’t matter to her as it does to me. I dare say she’s forgotten all about it now she’s up in London amusing herself,” said Charlotte in a satisfied tone which Jerry found rather provoking. “I don’t mind her not trying—I mean I’m not too proud to say I know she would have won it if she had. I shall always say so, for she is much further on and much cleverer than any of us. And some of them have been working very hard lately. It isn’t as if I had no one worth trying against.”
Jerry said no more. He was glad for Charlotte, but he did feel it hard that Claudia’s self-sacrifice, which had been just as great and real as if after events had not rendered it unnecessary, should remain for ever unknown and unappreciated.
“I wonder if I shall never be able to tell Charlotte,” he said to himself. “Long after, perhaps, when she’s left off caring about school things. I should like her to know some day,” and his blue eyes gazed out into the future wistfully.
“What are you thinking of, Jerry?” said Charlotte suddenly. “Why do you look so melancholy? The doctor says you may get up this afternoon.”
“I know he did,” said Jerry, “but I don’t think I want to. I’m too tired,” and with a little sigh of weariness he lay down again on his pillows.
Charlotte looked at him in distress.
“Oh, dear,” she said; “how unlucky that snowy day was, though I suppose things might have turned out worse.”
“Yes,” replied Jerry with complacency; “I might have had rheumatic fever, or brain fever, perhaps. But, Charlotte, it wasn’t because I was feverish that I heard those noises that night; I know it wasn’t. And I don’t believe papa thinks so either. It can’t be true about only a member of the family hearing it, for you see there was papa when he was a little boy. I’d like to tell her, Claudia, that.”
“It was very queer,” said Charlotte; “you don’t know how pleased I am to have seen that part of the house, Jerry. I took a good look up the stair to where the tower room must be: there was something melancholy about the house, wasn’t there? How awfully nice it would be with a large family in it, and lots of running about.”