‘In short,’ he said, ’I should like to undertake her education myself until she is older, when I shall see that she has the proper finishing.  She tells me she hates the district school, with Bill Peterkin and his warts—­’

‘Trying to kiss me,’ Jerry interrupted, as open-eyed and open-mouthed, she stood, with her hand on his shoulder, listening to him.

‘Yes, trying to kiss you, though I do not blame him much for that,’ Arthur said, with a smile, and then continued:  ’She is ambitious enough to want a governess like Ann Eliza Peterkin and my brother’s daughter, but I am better than a dozen governesses.  I can teach her all the rudiments of an English education, with French and German, and Latin, too, if she likes; and my plan is, that she come to me every day except Saturdays and Sundays—­come at ten in the morning, get her lessons and her lunch with me, and return home at four in the afternoon.  Would you like it, Cherry?’

‘Oh-h-oh!’ was all the answer Jerry could make for a moment, but her cheeks were scarlet, and tears of joy stood in her eyes, until she glanced at Harold; then all the brightness faded from her face, for how could she accept this great good and leave him to drudge and toil alone?

‘What is it, Cherry?’ Mr. Tracy asked; and, with a half sob, she replied: 

’I can’t go without Harold.  If I get learning, he must get learning, too,’ and leaving Arthur, the crossed over to the boy, and putting her arm around him, looked up at him with a look which in after years he would have given half his life to win.

She was a little girl now and did not care if he did know how much she loved him, and that for him she would sacrifice everything.  But in this case the sacrifice was not required, for Arthur hastened to say: 

’I shall not forget Harold.  I have something better in store for him than reciting his lessons to me.  When the High School opens in September, he is going there, and if he does well he shall go to Andover in time, and perhaps to Harvard.  It will all depend upon himself, and how he improves his opportunities.  What! crying?  Don’t you like it?’ Arthur asked, as he saw the great tears gathering in Harold’s eyes and rolling down his cheeks.

’Yes, oh, yes; but it don’t seem real, and—­and—­I guess it makes me kind of sick,’ Harold gasped, as, freeing himself from Jerry’s encircling arm, he hurried from the room, to think over this great and unexpected joy which had come so suddenly to him.

With his naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work had not been pleasant to him, and he had shrunk with inexpressible loathing from the swill cart and the other menial duties he had been obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved.  How to get an education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it was now solved for him.  For a moment the suddenness of the thing overcame him, and he sat down upon a table in the yard, faint and bewildered, while Arthur made his plan clear to Mrs. Crawford, saying that what he meant to do was partly for Jerry’s sake and partly for the sake of the young girl who had been his early love.