‘Yes, I know; I understand,’ Jerrie replied, ’I saw it in her face yesterday.  She has tired herself out for me, and if she dies I shall hate the room forever.’

‘But she will not die; that is nonsense,’ Tom began when he was interrupted by Mrs. Crawford, who called out: 

’Oh, Jerry, here is Billy Peterkin, with his hands full.  What shall I do with him?’

Dashing away her tears, Jerry replied: 

‘Send him in here, of course.’

In a few moments the dapper little man was in the woodshed, with a large bouquet of hot-house flowers in one hand and a basket of delicious black-caps in the other.  For a moment he stood staring first at Tom on the wooden chair glaring savagely at him, and at Jerrie by the washtub with the traces of tears on her face—­then, with a wind of forced laugh, he said: 

’Be-beg pardon, if I in-tr-trude.  Looks dusedly like l-love in a t-t-tub.’

‘And if it is, you have knocked the bottom out,’ Tom said, with a sneer.  Both jokes were atrocious, but they made Jerrie laugh, which was something.  She was glad on the whole that Billy had come, and when he offered her the berries and the flowers, she accepted them graciously, and bade him sit down, if he could find a seat.

‘Here is one on the wash bench,’ she said, ’or, will be when I have emptied the tub;’ and she was about to take up the latter, when Billy sprang to her assistance and emptied it himself, while Tom sat looking on, chaffing with anger and disgust.

After a moment Billy stuttered out: 

’Ann Eliza sent me here, and wants you to c-c-come and see her rooms.  G-g-got a suite, you know; and, by Jove, they are like a b-b-bazaar, they are so f-full of things, and fl-flowers; half Vassar is there.  Got your basket of d-daisies, Tom, and when I asked her where she g-g-got ’em, she said it was n-n-none of my business.  D-did she steal ’em?’ and he turned to Jerrie, whose face was scarlet, as she replied: 

’No, I gave them to her, with a lot of others; I could not bring them all and it was better to dispose of home flowers, as I can get them any time.’

Tom could have beaten the air, he was so angry.  He had been vain enough to hope that his gift was carefully put away in some box or parcel; and lo! it was in the possession of that red-haired Peterkin girl, whose penchant for himself he suspected, and whom he despised accordingly.

‘Much obliged to you for giving away my flowers,’ he was going to say, when Mrs. Crawford called again, and this time in real distress.

‘Jerrie, Jerrie! you must come now, for here is Dick St. Claire.’

For an instant Jerrie hesitated, and then ashamed of the feeling which had at first prompted her not to let Dick into the wood-shed, she replied: 

‘If Tom and Billy can he admitted to my boudoir, Dick can.  Send him in.’

‘By George, this is jolly!’ Dick said, as he bent his tall figure under the low door-way, and seated himself upon the inverted washtub which Billy had emptied.  ‘Have you all been washing?’ ‘No,’ Jerrie answered, proudly.  ’I am the washerwoman, and all those clothes you saw on the line are my handiwork.’