'It was the best, any way, we could get for the money.

Hal, you know, isn't very flush in the pocket.' It was a mean speech to make, and all Tom's audience felt it to be so, while Jerry crimsoned with resentment and answered hotly: 'Faded or not, I shall care more for Harold's flowers than for all the rest which may be given me.' This was not very encouraging to three at least of the young men who were intending to make the finest floral offering they could find, to the girl whom in their secret hearts they admired more than any girl they had ever seen, and who, had she made the slightest sign, might have been installed at Grassy Spring, or Tracy Park, or Le Bateau, within less than a month.

But Jerry had never made a sign, and had laughed and chatted and flirted with them all, not excepting Tom, who had long ago dropped his supercilious air of superiority and patronage when talking with her, and treated her with a gentleness and consideration almost lover-like.

Horribly jealous of Harold, whom he still felt infinitely above, although he did not now often openly show it, he had encouraged the visits of the latter to Tracy Park, and by jokes and hints and innuendoes had fed the flame which he knew was burning in his sister's heart.
'There will be a jolly row when mother finds it out,' he said to Maude one day; 'for you know she holds her head a great deal higher than Hal Hastings, who isn't the chap I'd choose for a brother-in-law.

But if you like him, all right.