In this softened frame of mind he at last said good-night, although pressed by Peterkin to stay and dry himself, or at least take a drink as a preventive against cold, but Tom declined both, saying a hot bath would set him all right.  ’Good-bye, Annie.  I’m awful sorry for the sprain,’ he said, offering her his hand; and as she took it in hers, noticing about the wrist prints of his fingers which had grasped it so tightly and held it so firmly as he dragged her along over stumps, and bogs, and stones, until she sank at his feet, ’I guess I was a brute to race her like that,’ he said to himself, as he went out into the darkness and started for home.  ’But I didn’t want to go with her.  I wanted to be with Jerrie, who, I have no doubt, went straight along, without ever thinking of spraining her ankle, as Ann Eliza did.  Poor little foot!  How swollen, though, it was when they got that boot off; but she bore it like a major!  Pity she has such all-fired red hair, and piles it up like a haystack on the top of her head, with every hair looking six ways for Sunday.’

At this point in his soliloquy Tom reached home, and was soon luxuriating in a hot bath, which removed all traces of the soaking he had received.  That night he dreamed of Ann Eliza, and how light she was in his arms, and how patient through it all, and that the magnificent rooms at Le Bateau were all frescoed with diamonds and the floors inlaid with gold.  Then the nature of his dream changed, and it was Jerry he was carrying in his arms, bending under her weight until his back was nearly broken.  But he did not heed it in the least, and when he bent to kiss the face lying upon his bosom, where Ann Eliza had lain, he awoke suddenly to find that it was morning and that the sun was shining brightly into his room.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

UNDER THE PINES WITH DICK.

Jerrie was soaked through, but she did not sprain her ankle as Ann Eliza had done.  And yet, had she been given her choice, rather than inflict the pain she did inflict upon poor Dick, she would have chosen the former unhesitatingly, and felt herself happy in doing it.  Like Tom and Ann Eliza, she and Dick had run when they saw how fast the storm was coming, but it was of no use, for by the time they entered the park, the shortest route to the cottage, the rain came down in torrents, and drenched them to the skin in a few moments.  Jerrie’s hat was wrenched off, as Ann Eliza’s had been by the wind, which tossed her long golden hair in a most fantastic fashion.  But Dick put his hat upon her head, and would have given her his coat had she allowed it.

‘No, Dick,’ she said, laughingly, as she saw him about to divest himself of it.  ’Keep your coat.  I am wet enough without that.  But what an awful storm, and how dark it grows.  We shall break our necks stumbling along at this rate.’

Just then a broad glare of lightning illuminated the darkness, and showed Dick the four pines close at hand.  He knew the place well, for, with the Tracy children, he had often played there when a boy, and knew that the thick bushes would afford them some protection from the storm.