’Yes—­Maude—­I remember; but Harold did not care for Maude.  Still, he had better come.  I want him here with you and me; and you must stay here now, day and night.  Select any room or rooms you please; all is yours, my daughter.’

‘But I cannot leave grandma,’ Jerrie said.

‘Let her come, too,’ Arthur replied.  ‘There is room for her.’

‘No,’ Jerrie persisted; ’that would not be best.  Grandma could not live with Mrs. Tracy.’

‘Then let Dolly go at once, I’ll give the order now;’ and Arthur put out his hand to the bell-cord.

But Jerrie stopped him instantly, saying to him: 

‘Remember Maude.  While she lives she must stay here.’

‘Yes, I forgot Maude.  Poor little Maude, I have not seen her yet,’ Arthur replied, subdued at once, and willing now that Jerrie should take the jewels to Dolly, who deserved but little forbearance from Jerrie’s hand.

Up to the very last Mrs. Tracy had, unconsciously perhaps, clung to a shadowy hope that Arthur might repudiate his daughter and call it a trumped-up affair; but when she heard how joyfully he had acknowledged and claimed her, she lost all hope, and her face wore a sullen, defiant expression as she walked about the house and through the handsome rooms, the very furniture of which had nearly all been bought with Arthur’s money, and consequently was not her own.  Since the coming of Jerrie, when the dark shadow settled upon Frank, and remorse was always torturing him, he had had no heart for business, and had, to all intents and purposes, lived upon his brother’s generosity, which had never failed.

‘Get what you like; there is money enough,’ was always Arthur’s reply, when a request for anything was made to him, and thus they had literally been sponges, taking everything and giving nothing, until now, when all was lost—­the luxury, the elegance, the ease, and the prestige of Tracy Park, which they had enjoyed so much.  It was hard, and Dolly felt that she could not bear it, and that she hated the girl through whom this change had come, and in every possible way she meant to wound and annoy her; so when the cook came to her that day for orders for dinner, she answered, curtly: 

‘Go to the heiress.  She is mistress now.’

In the hall, coming to seek her, Jerrie met the cook, who, with a comical look on her face, asked what she would have for dinner.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Jerrie said, and when the cook explained, her cheeks flushed for an instant and her eyes blazed with resentment But she controlled herself quickly and said, ’Tell Mrs. Tracy—­but, no, I am going to her room and will tell her myself.’

Knocking at Mrs. Tracy’s door, she was admitted to the presence of the lady, who simply stared at her as if asking why she were there.  Jerrie told her in a few words that her own diamonds had been found, and where they had been secreted, and that she had come to return them.