’Now, good-morning to you, and good riddance, too, for I am in an awful hurry, I am going over to see Maude as soon as I can get myself ready.’

She had not thought that Tom would wait for her, and would greatly have preferred to walk; but Tom was persistent, and moving his chair from the wood-shed outside into the shade where it was cooler, he sat fanning himself with his hat, and watching the long line of clothes, which Jerrie had washed, flopping in the wind, with a feeling of mortified pride, as if his own wife had washed them.  He knew that his mother had once been familiar with tubs, and wash-boards, and soap-suds, but that was before his day.  Twenty-seven years had washed all that out, and he really felt that to be a Tracy and live at Tracy Park was an honor scarcely less than to be President of the United States, and Jerrie, he was sure, would see it as such when once the chance was offered her.  She could not be so blind to her own interest as to refuse him, Tom Tracy, who was so much sought after by the belles of Saratoga and Newport, where he had spent a part of two or three seasons.  He had been best man at the great ——­ wedding in Springfield, and groomsman at another big affair in Boston, and had scores of invitations everywhere.  Taken altogether, he was a most desirable parti, and he was rather surprised himself at his infatuation for the girl whom he had found in the suds, and who was not ashamed that he had thus seen her.  This was while he was watching the clothes on the line, scowling at three pairs of coarse, vulgar stockings which he knew belonged to Mrs. Crawford, and the pair of blue overalls which were Harold’s.

’Yes, I do wonder at my interest in that nameless girl, whose mother was a common peasant woman,’ he thought; but when the nameless girl appeared, fresh, and bright, and dainty, as if she had never seen a wash-tub, with her hat on her arm, and two of his roses pinned on the bosom of her blue muslin dress, he forgot the peasant woman, and the lack of a name, and thought only of the lovely girl who signified that she was ready.

It was very cool in the pine woods, where the heat of the summer morning had not yet penetrated, and Tom, who was enjoying himself immensely, suggested that they leave the park and take a short drive on the river road.  But Jerrie, who was not enjoying herself, said ‘No!’ very decidedly.  It would be hot there, and she was anxious to be with Maude as soon as possible.  So they drove on until they reached the grounds which surrounded the house, and which Jerrie thought more beautiful than she had ever seen them.  The grass was like velvet, with masses of flowers and shrubs, and urns, and bits of statuary here and there, while over a little brook where Jerrie and Maude had often waded, and where poor Jack had had a little water-wheel, a rustic bridge had been built, with a pretty summer-house just beyond.  Frank Tracy was a natural gardener, and had lavished piles of money upon the grounds, in which he often worked himself, and where he was busy now with a clump of roses when Tom drove up with Jerrie.