‘I always intended to take care of you,’ he said; ’but things go from my mind, and I forget the past as completely as if it had never been.  But this will stay by me, for I shall have Cherry as a reminder, and if I am in danger of forgetting she will jog my memory.’

Fur a moment Mrs. Crawford could not speak, so great was her surprise and joy that the good she had thought unattainable was to be Harold’s at last.  And yet something in her proud, sensitive nature rebelled against receiving so much from a stranger, even if that stranger were Arthur Tracy.  It seemed like charity, she said, when at last she spoke at all.  But Arthur overruled her with that persuasive way he had of converting people to his views; and when at last he left the cottage it was with the understanding that Jerry should commence her lessons with him the first week in September, and that Harold should enter the High School in Shannondale when it opened in the autumn.

CHAPTER XX.

THE WORKING OF ARTHUR’S PLAN.

As Arthur was wholly uncommunicative with regard to his affairs, and as Mrs. Crawford kept her own counsel, and bade Harold and Jerry do the same, the Tracys knew nothing whatever of the plan until the September morning when Jerry presented herself at the park house, and was met in the door-way by Mrs. Frank, who was just going out.  Very few could have resisted the bright little face, so full of childish happiness, or the clear, assured voice, which said so cheerily: 

‘Good-morning, Mrs. Tracy.  I’m come to school.’

But, prejudiced as she was against the girl, Mrs. Tracy could resist any thing, and she answered, haughtily;

’Come to school!  What do you mean?  This is not a school-house, and if you have any errand here, go round to the other door.  Only company come in here.’

‘But I’m company.  I’m going to get learning; he told me to come,’ Jerry answered, flushed and eager, and altogether sure of her right to be there.

Before Mrs. Frank could reply, a voice, distinct and authoritative, and to which she always yielded, called from the top of the stairway inside: 

’Mrs. Tracy, if that is Jerry to whom you are talking, send her up at once.  I am waiting for her.’

Jerry did not mean the nod she gave the lady as she passed her to be disrespectful, but Mrs. Frank felt it as such, and went to her own room in a most perturbed state of mind, for which she could find no vent until her husband came in, when she stated the case to him, and asked if he knew what it meant.

But Frank was as ignorant as herself, and could not enlighten her until that night, after he had seen his brother, and heard from him what he was intending to do.

‘God bless you, Arthur.  You don’t know how happy you have made me,’ Frank said, feeling on the instant that a great burden was lifted from his mind.