CHAPTER L.
THE FLOWER FADETH.
It took some days after Arthur's return for the household to settle down into anything like order and quiet, Arthur was so restless and so happy, and so anxious for everyone to recognise Jerrie as his daughter--Miss Tracy, as he called her when presenting her to the people who had known her all her life--the St.Claires, and Athertons, and Crosbys, and Warners--who came to call upon and congratulate him.

Even Peterkin came in his coat-of-arms carriage, with a card as big as the back of Webster's spelling book, and himself gotten up in a dress coat, with lavender kids on his burly hands, which nearly crushed Arthur's in their grasp as he expressed himself 'tickleder than he ever was before in his life.' 'And to think I was the means on't,' he said, 'for if I hadn't of kicked that darned old table into slivers when I was givin' on't to Jerrie, she'd never of know'd what was in that dumbed rat-hole.

I was a leetle too upstrupulous, I s'spose, but I'll be darned if she didn't square up to me like a catamount, till my hair riz right up, and I concluded the Tramp House was no place for me.

But I respect her for it; yes, I do, and by George, old chap, I congratulate you with my whole soul, and so does May Jane, and so does Ann 'Lizy, and so does Bill, and so does the whole caboodle on us.' This was Peterkin's speech, which Arthur received more graciously than Jerrie, who, remembering Harold, could not be very polite to the man who had injured him so deeply.

As if divining her thoughts, Peterkin turned to her and said: 'Now, one word, Miss Tracy, about Hal.