’Just think of it.  Five, or, rather, four young men—­for Tom don’t
    count—­for me to entertain.  But I can do it, and rather like it,
    too, though they all tire me, except Harold.’

Jerrie read this letter, which was received a few days before commencement, two or three times, and each time she read it, the little ache in her heart kept growing larger, until at last it was actual pain, and covering her face with her hands, she cried like a child.

‘It is Maude I am crying for,’ she kept saying to herself.  ’I know she is worse than they have told me.  She is going to die, and I am mean to grudge her Harold’s love, if that will make her happier.  Why does she go to the cottage so often, I wonder?  Is it to see him?  He would not like me to do that.  He was chagrined when I kissed him at Harvard.  But, then, he does not love me, and he does Maude; but he must see me graduate.  I’ll write and tell him so.  That, surely, will not be “throwing myself at his head;"’ and seizing her pen, Jerrie wrote, rapidly and excitedly: 

’DEAR HAROLD:  I have just heard from Maude, who says there is a possibility that you will not come to Vassar; but I shall be so disappointed if you do not.  I would rather have you here than all the wise old heads in the State.  So come without fail, no matter what you are doing.  I can’t imagine anything which should keep you.  Tell grandma I am longing to be home, and keep thinking just how cool and nice the kitchen looks, with the hop-vine over the door; but she will I have to raise the roof soon, for I do believe I’ve grown an inch since last winter and am in danger of knocking my brains out in those low rooms.

    ’Good-bye till I see you.

    ‘JERRIE.’

CHAPTER XXVII.

‘HE COMETH NOT,’ SHE SAID.

The she was Jerrie, who, the night before commencement, was shaking hands with Dick St. Claire, Fred Raymond, Tom Tracy, and Billy Peterkin, all of whom had arrived on the evening train, and after dinner had come to pay their respects to the young ladies from Shannondale.  The he way Harold, for whom Jerrie asked at once.

‘Where is Harold?  Is he coming in the morning?’ she said, as she stood, tall, and straight, and queen-like, before the four young men, who glanced at each other with a significance in their looks, which she did not understand.

It was Dick St. Claire who took it upon himself to explain.

‘No, Hal is not coming,’ he said, ’and he is awfully cut up about it.  He thought he might manage it until yesterday when he found it impossible to do so.  You see, he has taken a job which must be done at a certain time.’

‘Taken a job!’ Jerrie repeated.  ‘What job?  What do you mean?’ and her blue eyes flashed upon each of the young men, falling last upon Tom Tracy, as if she expected him to answer, which he did in the half sneering, half satirical tone which made her hate him and long to box his ears.