‘What in the world!’ she exclaimed, stopping short on the threshold.  ’I mean to be the first on the scene, and lo! here you are before me.  What are you doing?’

‘Getting my breakfast,’ Harold replied, turning toward her with a slight shade of annoyance on his face.  ’You see, I have a job.  I did not tell you last night that a Mr. Allen, who lives across the river, four miles away, looked in one day when I was painting your ceiling, and liked it so much that he has engaged me to paint one for him.  I told him I was only an amateur, but he said he’d rather have me than all the boss painters in Shannondale.  He offered me three dollars a day and board, which means dinner and supper, or fifteen for the job; and I took the last offer, as I can make the most at it by beginning early and working late, and we need—­’

Here he stopped short, for how could he tell Jerrie that the raised roof had taken all his means, and that he even owed the grocer for the sugar she had eaten upon her berries, and the butcher for the bit of steak bought the previous night for her breakfast and his grandmother’s.  But Jerrie guessed it without his telling, but with her quick instinct and delicate perception knew that no genuine man like Harold cares to have even his best friend know of his poverty if he can help it.  Forcing back the tears which sprang to her eyes, she cried, cheerily: 

’Yes, I know; you are a kind of second Michael Angelo, though I doubt if that old gentleman, at your age, could have done my room better than you did.  I don’t wonder Mr. Allen wanted you.  But you are not going to tramp four miles on a hot morning, on nothing but bread and coffee, and such coffee—­muddier than the Missouri River!  You shall have a decent breakfast, if I can get it for you.  Just sit down and rest, and see what a Vassar with a diploma can do.’

As she talked she was replenishing the fire with hard-wood, putting on the kettle, pouring out the coffee dregs saved from yesterday’s breakfast, and hunting for an egg with which to settle the fresh cup she intended to make.

’No, no, Jerrie.  No, you must not take that; it is all we have in the house, and grandma must have a fresh one every day at eleven o’clock, the doctor says—­it strengthens her,’ Harold said, rising quickly, while Jerrie put the one egg back in the box and asked what Mrs. Crawford did settle coffee with.

‘I am sure I don’t know; cold water, I guess,’ Harold said, resuming his seat, while Jerrie tripped here and there, laying the cloth, bringing his cup and saucer and plate, and at last pouncing upon the bit of steak in the refrigerator.

But here Harold again interfered.

’Jerrie—­Jerrie, that is for your breakfast and grandma’s.  You must not take that.’

’But I shall take half of it.  I would rather have a glass of Nannie’s milk any time than meat, and you are going to have my share; so, Mr. Hastings, just mind your business and let the cook alone, or she’ll be givin’ ye warnin’,’ Jerrie answered laughingly, as she divided the steak, which she proceeded at once to broil.