Jerry was to be educated and cared for, and would probably receive all that the world would naturally concede to her if the truth were known.  He believed, or thought he did, that Gretchen had never been his brother’s wife, though to believe so seemed an insult to the original of the sweet face which looked at him from the window every time he entered his brother’s room.  Jerry was a great trouble to him, and he would not have liked to confess to any one how constantly she was in his mind, or how many plans he had devised in order to atone for the wrong he knew he was doing her.  And now his brother had taken her off his hands, and she was to be cared for and receive the education which would fit her to earn her own livelihood, and make her future life respectable.  No particular harm was done her after all, and he might now enjoy himself, and cast his morbid fancies to the winds, he reflected, as he went whistling to his wife’s apartment, and told her what he had heard.

For a moment Dolly was speechless with astonishment, and when at last she opened her lips, her husband silenced her with that voice and manner of which she was beginning to be afraid.

It was none of their business, he said, what Arthur did in his own house, provided they were not molested, and if he chose to turn schoolmaster, he had a right to do so.  For his part, he was glad of it, as it saved him the expense of Jerry’s education, for if Arthur had not taken it in hand, he should; and Dolly was to keep quiet and let the child come and go in peace.

After delivering himself of these sentiments, Frank went away, leaving his wife to wonder, as she had done more than once, if he, too, were not a little crazy, like his brother.  But, she said no mare about Jerry’s coming there, except to suggest that she might at least come in at the side door instead of the front, especially on muddy days when she was liable to soil the costly carpets.  And Jerry, who cared but little how she entered the house, if she only got in, came through the kitchen after the second day, and wiped her feet upon the mat; and once, when her shoes were worse than usual, took them off, lest they should leave a track.

It is not our intention to linger over the first few months of Jerry’s school days at Tracy Park, but rather to hasten on to the summer four years after her introduction to Tracy Park as Arthur’s pupil.  During all that time he had never once seemed to grow weary of the task he had imposed upon himself, but, on the contrary, his interest had daily deepened in the child who developed so rapidly under his training that he sometimes looked at her in astonishment, marvelling more and more who she was and from whom she had inherited her wonderful memory and power to grasp points which are usually far beyond the comprehension of a child of ten, or even twelve, and which Maude Tracy could no more have mastered than her brother, the stupid Jack.  His intellect had not grown with his body, and when at thirteen he was asked the question, ’If there are five peaches on the table, and Tom eats three of them, how many will there be left?’ he answered, promptly: