So great was her infatuation for the man who had never shown her the slightest attention, that even his flowers, though second-hand, and not intended for her, were everything to her, and when she packed her trunk that night she put them carefully away in many wrappings of paper, to be brought out at home in the privacy of her own room, and kept as long as the least beauty or perfume remained.
It was a merry party which the New York train carried to Shannondale the next day, and Jerrie was the merriest and gayest of them all, bandying jokes and jests, and coquetting pretty equally with the young men, until neither Tom, nor Dick, nor Billy quite knew what he was doing or saying.
But always in her gayest moods, when her eyes were brightest and her wit the keenest, there was in Jerrie's heart a thought of Harold, who had so disappointed her, and a wonder as to the nature of the _job_ which had been of sufficient importance to keep him from Vassar.
'Shingling a roof, and Maude is helping him,' Billy said, 'I wonder what he meant ?' she was thinking, when she heard Ann Eliza cry out, that the towers of 'Le Bateau' were visible.
As she had not seen that wonderful structure since its completion, she arose from her seat, and going to the window, looked out upon the massive pile in the distance, looking, with its turrets, and towers, and round projections, like some old castle rather than a home where people could live and be happy.
'It is very grand,' she said to Ann Eliza; and Billy, who was leaning toward her, replied: 'Yes, too grand for a Pe-Peterkin.

It wants you, there, Jerrie, as its m-m-master-p-p-piece, and, by Jove, you can b-be there, too, if you will!' No one heard this attempt at an offer but Jerrie, who, with a saucy toss of the head, replied, laughingly: 'Thank you, Billy.

I'll think of it, and let you know when I make up my mind to come.

Just now I prefer the cottage in the lane to any spot on earth.

Oh, here, we are at the station,' she cried, as the train shot round a curve and Shannondale was reached.
There was a scrambling for bundles, and flowers, and wraps.