As Jerry had grown older, and merged from childhood into womanhood, a change had come over both the girl and boy, a change which Jerry discovered first, awaking suddenly one day to find that the brother and sister delusion was ended, and Harold stood to her in an entirely new relation.  Just when the change had commenced she could not tell.  She only knew that it had come, and that she was not quite so happy as she had been in the days when she called Harold her brother, and kissed him whenever she felt like it, which was very often, for she was naturally affectionate, and showed her affection to those she loved.  She was seventeen when the dream came—­the old, old story which transformed her from a romping, a rather gushing child, into a woman more quiet and more dignified, especially with Harold, who missed and mourned in secret for the playful loving ways which had been so pleasant to him, even if he did not always make a return.

Though capable of loving quite as devotedly and unselfishly as Jerry, he was not demonstrative, while a natural shyness and depreciation of himself made him afraid to tell in words just what or how much he did feel.  He would rather show it by acts; and never was brother tenderer or kinder toward a sister than he was to Jerry, whose changed mood he could not understand.  And so there gradually arose between them a little cloud, which both felt, and neither could exactly define.

Arthur had kept his promise well with regard to Jerry, who had passed from him to Vassar, and he would have kept it with Harold, if the latter had permitted it.  But the boy’s pride and independence had asserted themselves at last.  He had accepted the course at Andover, and one year at Harvard, on condition that he should be allowed to pay Arthur back all he had received as soon as he was able to do it.  As he entered Harvard in advance, he was a junior when he decided to care for himself, and during the remainder of his college course, which, of course, was longer than usual, he struggled on, doing what he could during the summer vacation—­teaching school for months at a time—­and in the college reducing his expenses by acting as proctor, and compelling obedience to the rules of the institution.  Even the few who were aware of his limited means, and his efforts to increase them, had to acknowledge, as he stood before the multitude, delivering the valedictory, and exciting thunders of applause by his graceful gestures and thrilling eloquence, that he was not only an orator, but every inch a gentleman.

His fellow students who saw him then, and listened entranced to his clear, well-trained voice, thought not of Harold’s threadbare coat and shining old-fashioned pants, which were so conspicuous as he pursued his studies in the class-room, but which were now concealed by the gown he wore over them.  They saw only the large, dark eyes, the finely chiseled features, and the manly form.  But as they listened to the burning words which showed so much clear, deep thought, they said to each other: