’Of course there is no mistake.  I do not doubt that you are mistress here, and am ready to leave at once.  Shall we pack up and quit to-night?’

‘Dolly!’ ‘Mother!’ came angrily and sternly from both Tom and Frank, and ‘Oh, mamma, please,’ came faintly from Maude, while Jerrie lifted up her head, and looking steadily at the cruel woman, said: 

’Why are you so hard with me?  I cannot help it.  I am not to blame.  I mean to do right; only wait—­a little.  I am so sick now—­so dizzy and blind.  Oh, somebody lead me out where I can breathe.  I am choking here.’

It was Tom who reached her first, and passing his arm around her, took her into the open air and to a seat under the tree where once before she had almost fainted, as she did now, with her head upon his shoulder, for he put it there, and then pushed her hair back from her face as he said lightly: 

‘Don’t take it so hard; if we can stand it, you can!’

Then Jerrie straightened up and said: 

‘Oh, Tom, do you want to kill me now?’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, and she replied: 

’Don’t you know you said under the pines that you would kill any claimant to Tracy Park who might appear against you?’

‘I remember it,’ Tom said, ’but I didn’t think then that the claimant would be Jerrie, my cousin,’ and he put his arm around her as he continued:  ’I can’t say that I am not awfully cut up to be turned neck and heels out of what I believed would be my own, but if it must be, I am glad it is you who do it, for I know you’ll not be hard upon us, or let Uncle Arthur be, even if mother is so mean.  Remember, Jerrie, that I loved you and asked you to be my wife when I believed you poor and unknown.’

Tom was very politic and was speaking good words for himself, but all the good there was in him seemed now to be on the surface and while inwardly rebelling at his misfortune, he felt a thrill of joy in knowing that Jerrie was his cousin, and would not be hard upon him.

‘Shall we go back to the house?’ he said at last, and they went back, meeting the people upon the piazza, where they stopped for a moment while Jerrie’s hands were shaken, and she was kissed and congratulated that at last the mystery was cleared, and her rights restored to her.

‘Mr. Arthur Tracy ought to be here,’ Judge St. Claire said.

‘Yes, I’d thought of that,’ Tom replied, first, ’and shall telegraph him to-morrow,’

Then they said good night, and without going in to see either Mr. or Mrs. Tracy again, Tom and Jerry walked slowly toward the cottage, through the leafy woods, where the trees met in graceful arches overhead, and the moonlight fell in silver flecks upon the grass, and the summer air was odorous and sweet with the smell of the pines and the balm of Gilead trees scattered here and there.  It was a lovely place, and Tom thought so with a keen sense of pain, as, after leaving Jerrie at her gate, he walked slowly back until he reached the four pines, where he sat down to think and wonder what he should do as a poor man, with neither business nor prospects.