‘I shall not go back,’ Tom said.  ’I waited on purpose to come with you.  There is something I must say to you, and I may as well say it now as any other time.’

Jerrie was tall, but Tom was six inches taller, and he was looking down straight into her eyes with an expression in his before which hers fell, for she guessed what it was he wished to say to her, and her heart beat painfully as, without another word, she walked rapidly on until they were in the woods near a place where four tall pines formed a kind of oblong square.  Here an iron seat had been placed years before, when the Tracy children were young, and held what they called their picnics there under the thick boughs of the pines which shaded them from both heat and cold.  Laying his hand on Jerrie’s shoulder, Tom said to her: 

’Sit here with me under the pines while I tell you what for a long time I have wanted to tell you, and which may as well be told at once.’

Still Jerrie did not speak, but she sat down upon the seat, and, taking off her hat, began to fan herself with it, while with the end of her parasol she tried to trace letters in the thick carpet of dead pine needles at her feet.

Her attitude was not encouraging, and a less conceited man than Tom would have felt disheartened, but he was not.  No girl would be insane enough to refuse Tom Tracy, of Tracy Park; and at last he made the plunge, and told her of his love for her and his desire to make her his wife.

‘I know I was a mean little scamp when I was a boy,’ he said, ’and did a lot of things for which I am ashamed; but I believe that I always loved you, Jerrie, even when I was teasing you the worst.  I know I used to think you the prettiest little girl I ever saw, and now I think you the prettiest big one, and I have had splendid opportunities for seeing girls.  You know I have travelled a great deal, and been in the very best society; and, if I may say it, I think I can marry almost any one whom I choose.  I used to fear lest you and Hal would hit it off together, or, rather, that he would try to get you, but, since he and Maude are so thick, my fears in that quarter have vanished, and I am constantly building castles as to what we will do.  I did not mean to ask you quite so soon, but the sight of you this morning washing your clothes, with all that soapy steam in your face, decided me not to put it off.  A Tracy has no business in a washtub.’

‘Did no Tracy ever wash her own clothes?’ Jerrie asked, with an upward and sidewise turn of her head, habitual with her when startled or stirred.

There was a ring in her voice which Tom did not quite like, but he answered, promptly: 

’Oh, of course, years ago; but times change, and you certainly ought not to be familiar with such vulgar things, and at Tracy Park you will be surrounded with every possible luxury, Father, and Maude, and Uncle Arthur will be overjoyed to have you there; and if, on my part, love and money can make you happy, you certainly will be so.’