‘Your checks, miss,’ the coachman from Grassy Spring said to Nina, as he touched his hat regretfully to her, and his words were repeated to Ann Eliza by the servant from Le Bateau.

But Jerrie held hers in her hand with a rueful look of disappointment on her face as she looked in vain for Harold or Maude to greet her.  For a single moment the difference between her position and that of Nina and Ann Eliza struck her like a blow, and she thought to herself: 

‘For them everything, for me nothing.’

Then she rallied, and passing her checks to the baggage master, said to him: 

’If there is a boy here with a cart or a wheelbarrow, let him take my trunks, otherwise send them by express.  I see there is no one to meet me.’

‘Yes’m, but they’s comin’,’ the man replied, with a significant nod in the direction where a cloud of dust was visible, as the Tracy victoria came rapidly up to the station, with Maude and Harold in it.

The former was standing up and waving her parasol to the party upon the platform, while, almost before the carriage stopped, Harold sprang out, and had both of Jerrie’s hands in his, and held them, as he told her how glad he was to welcome her home again.  He looked tired and flurried, and did not seem quite himself, but there could be no doubt that he was glad, for the gladness shone in his eyes and in his face, and Jerrie felt it in the warm clasp of his hands, which she noticed with a pang were brown, and calloused, and bruised in some places as if they had of late been used to harder toil than usual.  But she had not much time for thought before Maude’s arms were around her neck and Maude was standing on tiptoe and drawing down her face which she covered with kisses; and, between laughing and crying, exclaimed: 

’You darling old Jerrie, how glad I am to see you again! and how tall and grand you have grown!  Why, I don’t much more than come to your shoulder.  See, Harold, how Jerrie outshines me,’ and she lifted her sparkling face to Harold, who looked down at her as a brother might have looked at an only sister of whom he was very fond.

How pretty and piquant she was with her brilliant complexion and her black eyes, and how stylish she looked in the Paris gown of embroidered linen, which fitted her perfectly, and the big hat, which turned up just enough on the side to give her a saucy, coquettish air, as she flitted from one to another, kissing Nina twice, Ann Eliza once, and shaking hands with all the young men except Tom, who put his in his pockets out of her way.

He could not stand Maude’s gush, he said, and he watched her with a half-sneering smile as she tiptoed around, for it always seemed as if she walked upon her toes, courtesying as she walked.

‘I meant to have been here before the train,’ she said to Jerrie, ’and I was here about an hour ago; but when I found the cars were late I drove over to tell Harold, as time with him was everything.  How we did drive, though, when we heard the whistle.  Come, jump in,’ she continued, as she herself stepped into the victoria.  ’Jump in, and I will take you home in a jiffy.  It won’t hurt Hal to walk, although he is awful tired.’