So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked, long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her to wear on a cherry expedition.  A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide cape covered her head and concealed her face when she started from the cottage, with her quart tin pail on her arm; but no sooner was she on the path which led to the park that the obnoxious bonnet was removed and was swinging on her arm, while she was admiring the shadow which, her long, bright curls made in the sunshine as she shook her head from side to side.

To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain.  Passionately fond of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in Mrs. Crawford’s old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was ‘awful handsome,’ she had felt a pride in it and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford’s asseverations that ‘Handsome is that handsome does’ could not destroy.  Maude Tracy’s hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the advantage over her.

‘I do hope we shall see her,’ she said to Harold, as she danced along, swaying her bonnet and shaking her hair.  ‘Do you think we shall?’

Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she would speak to them, he said.

‘Why not?’ Jerry asked, and he replied: 

‘Oh, I suppose they feel big because they are rich and we are poor.’

’But why ain’t I rich, too?  Why don’t I live at the park like Maude, and wear low-necked aprons instead of this old high one?’ Jerry asked; but Harold could not tell, and only said: 

‘Would you rather live at the park than with me?’

‘No,’ Jerry answered, promptly, stopping short and digging her heel into the soft loam of the path.  ’I would not stay anywhere without you; and when I live at the park you will live there, too, and have codfish and tatoe every day.’

Strangely enough this was Harold’s favorite dish, and, as it was not his grandmother’s, his taste was not gratified in that respect as often as he would have liked, hence Jerry’s promise of the luxury.

Just here, at a sudden turn in the path, they came upon Jack and Maude Tracy playing on a bench under a tree, while the nurse was at a distance either reading or asleep.  Harold would have passed them at once, as he knew his grandmother was in a hurry for the cherries, but Jerry had no such intention.

Stopping short in front of Maude, she inspected her carefully, from her white dress and bright plaid sash to the string of amber beads around her neck; while, side by side with this picture, she saw herself in her dark calico frock and high-necked apron, with her sun-bonnet and tin pail on her arm.  Jerry did not like the contrast, and a lump began to swell in her throat.  Then, as a happy thought struck her, she said, with something like exultation in her tone: