‘Just as long as I have a dollar of my own, and she needs it,’ was his reply, as he left the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving her to think him almost as crazy as his brother.

Thus it was not in a very quiet frame of mind that she went out upon the cool, broad piazza, and, taking one of the large willow chairs standing there, began to rock back and forth and wonder what had so changed her husband, making him silent and absent-minded, and even irritable at times, as he had been that morning.  Was there insanity in his veins as well as in his brother’s, and would her children inherit—­her darling Maude, of whom she was so proud, and who, she hoped, would some day be the richest heiress in the county and marry Dick St. Claire, if, indeed, she did not look even higher?

It was at this point in her soliloquy that she saw Jerry coming up the walk, her face glowing with excitement and her manner one of freedom and assurance.

Ascending the steps, Jerry nodded and smiled at the lady, whose expression was not very inviting, and who, to the child’s remark, ’I’ve comed again,’ answered, icily: 

‘I see you have.  Seems to me you come pretty often.’  Turning to Charles, Mrs. Tracy continued: 

‘Why is she here again so soon?  What does she want?’

Quick to detect and interpret the meaning of the tones of a voice, and hearing disapprobation in Mrs. Tracy’s, Jerry’s face was shadowed at once, and she looked up entreatingly at Charles, who said: 

’Mr. Tracy sent me for her.  She was with him yesterday, and he will have her again to-day.’

Then Jerry’s face brightened, and she chimed in: 

‘Iss, I’m visiting, I’m invited, and I’m going to stay to eat.’

Mrs. Tracy dared not interfere with Arthur, even if he took Jerry to live there altogether, and, with a bend of her head, she signified to Charles that the conference was ended.

‘Come, Jerry,’ Charles said; but Jerry held back a moment, and asked: 

‘Where’s Maude?’

If Mrs. Tracy heard, she did not reply, and Jerry followed on after Charles through the hall and up the broad staircase to the darkened room where Arthur lay, suffering intense pain in the head, and moaning occasionally.  But he heard the patter of the little feet, for he was listening for it, and when Jerry entered his room he raised himself upon his elbow, and reaching the other hand toward her, said: 

’So you have come again, little Jerry; or, perhaps I should call you little Cherry, considering how you first came to me.  Would you like that name?’

‘Iss,’ was Jerry’s reply, in the quick, half-lisping way which made the monosyllable so attractive.

‘Well, then, Cherry,’ Arthur continued, ’take off that bonnet, and open the blind behind me so I can see your face.  Then bring that stool and sit where I can look at you while you rub my head with your hands.  It aches enough to split, and I believe the bumble bees are swarming; but they can’t get out, and if they could, they are the white-faced kind, which never sting.’