I counted upon him,' Dick said.

'But you will come, of course, and I offer my services on the spot to see you home.

Do you accept them ?' Jerrie seemed to see, without looking, the disappointment in Billy's face, and the wrath in Tom's; but as she greatly preferred Dick's society to theirs in a walk from Grassy Spring to the cottage, she accepted his offer, and then said, laughingly: 'Now, good-morning to you, and good riddance, too, for I am in an awful hurry, I am going over to see Maude as soon as I can get myself ready.' She had not thought that Tom would wait for her, and would greatly have preferred to walk; but Tom was persistent, and moving his chair from the wood-shed outside into the shade where it was cooler, he sat fanning himself with his hat, and watching the long line of clothes, which Jerrie had washed, flopping in the wind, with a feeling of mortified pride, as if his own wife had washed them.

He knew that his mother had once been familiar with tubs, and wash-boards, and soap-suds, but that was before his day.

Twenty-seven years had washed all that out, and he really felt that to be a Tracy and live at Tracy Park was an honor scarcely less than to be President of the United States, and Jerrie, he was sure, would see it as such when once the chance was offered her.