wealth he was to inherit from his Uncle Arthur.  For the last year he had been at Andover, where he had formed a new set of acquaintances, one of whom was spending the vacation with him.  This was young Fred Raymond, whose home was at Red Stone Hall, in Kentucky, and whose parents were in Europe.  Between the two youths there was but little similarity of taste or disposition, for young Raymond represented all that was noble and true, and though proud of his State and proud of his name, never assumed the slightest superiority over those whom the world considered his inferiors.  He was Tom’s room-mate, and hence the intimacy between them which had resulted in Fred’s accepting the invitation to Tracy Park.  If anything had been wanting to complete Tom’s estimate of his own importance this visit of the Kentuckian would have done it.  All his former friends were cut except Dick St. Claire, while Harold was as much ignored as if he had never existed.  Tom did not even see him or recognize him with so much as a look, but passed him by as he would any common day laborer whom he might chance to meet.  All through the summer days, while Harold was working until every bone in his body ached, Tom and his friend were enjoying themselves in hunting, fishing, driving, or rowing, or lounging under the trees in the shady lawns.

That afternoon when Jerry joined him in the hayfield, Tom and the Kentuckian had passed him in their fanciful hunting-suits with their dogs and guns, but though Harold was within a few yards of them, Tom affected not to see him, and kept his head turned the other way, as if intent upon some object in the distance.

Leaning upon his rake, Harold watched them out of sight, with a choking sensation in his throat as he wondered if it would always be thus with him, and if the day would never come when he, too, could know what leisure meant, with no thought for the morrow’s bread.

’I am Tom’s superior in everything but money, and yet he treats me like a dog,’ he said, as he seated himself upon the grass, where he sat fanning himself with his straw hat.

When Jerry appeared in view he brightened at once, for in all the world there was not anything half so sweet and lovely to him as the little blue-eyed girl who seated herself beside him, and, nestling close to him, laid her curly head upon his arm.

‘I’ve come to help you rake the hay,’ she said, ’for grandma told me you had a headache at noon, and couldn’t eat your huckleberry pie.  I am awfully sorry, Harold, but I ate it myself, it looked so good, instead of saving it for your supper.  It was nasty and mean in me, and I hope it will make me sick.’

But Harold told her he did not care for the pie, and would rather that she would eat it if she liked it.  Then he questioned her of the park house and of Arthur; asking if the bees were often in his head now, or had she driven them out.

‘No, I guess I haven’t.  They were awful yesterday and to-day,’ Jerry replied.  ’He was talking of Gretchen all the time.  I wonder who she was.  Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes.  How he must have loved her, better than you or I could ever love anybody; don’t you think so?’