s,' Jerry answered: 'and yesterday, after I sang him a
little German song, which he taught me, he had them pretty bad--the bees
in his head, I mean: that is what he calls it when things are mixed; and
he says he is going to write to her, or her friends.'

'Write to her! I thought he had given that up. I thought he--Did he say,
"Write to her friends?"' Frank gasped as he felt himself grow cold and
sick with this threatened danger.

Arthur had seemed so quiet and happy with Jerry, and had said so little
of Gretchen, that Frank had grown quite easy in his mind, and the black
shadow of fear did not trouble him quite so much as formerly. But now it
was over him again, and grew in intensity as he questioned the child.

'Have you ever tried to find out who Gretchen is?' he asked at last.

'No,' she replied, 'but I guess she is his wife.'

'Yes,' Frank said, falteringly, 'his wife; and where do you think she
lived?'

'Oh, I know that. In Wiesbaden. He told me so once, and it seems as if I
had been there, too, when he talked about it, and I hear the music and
see the flowers, and a white-faced woman is with me, not at all like
mother, who, they say, was ugly and dark; black as a nigger, Tom told me
once, when he was mad. Was she black?'

Mr. Tracy made no reply to this, but said, suddenly:

'Jerry, do you like me well enough to do me a favor, a great favor?'

'Why, yes, I guess I do. I like you very much, though not as well as I
do Harold and Mr. Arthur. What do you want?' was Jerry's answer.

After hesitating a moment, Mr. Tracy began:

'There are certain reasons why I ought to know if my brother writes to
Gretchen, or her friends, or any one in Germany, especially Wiesbaden. A
letter of that kind might do me a great deal of harm; if he should write
to any one in Germany, you would, perhaps, he asked to post the letter,
as he never goes to town?'

He said this interrogatively, and Jerry answered him promptly:

'I think he would give it to me.'

'Yes, well; Jerry, can you keep a secret, and never tell any one what I
am saying to you?' was Frank's next remark, to which Jerry responded:

'I think I should tell Harold, and, perhaps, Mr. Arthur.'

'No, no, no, Jerry, never!' and Frank laid his hand half menacingly upon
the little girl's shoulder. 'I have been kind to you, have paid your
board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there--'

He felt how mean it was to say this, and do not at all resent Jerry's
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