rstood
the case and supposed she did too.

The St. Claire carriage had driven away with Nina and Dick, and Fred,
and the carriage from Le Bateau had gone, too, when at last Jerrie and
Harold started down the road and along the highway to the gate through
which the strange woman had once passed with the baby Jerrie in her
arms. The baby was a young woman now, tall and erect, with her head set
high as she walked silently by Harold's side, until the gate was reached
and they passed into the shaded lane, where they were hidden from the
sight of anyone upon the main road leading to the park house. Then
stopping suddenly, she faced squarely toward her companion, and said:

'Why didn't you come to commencement? Tom Tracy said you were shingling
a roof, and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you.'

CHAPTER XXIX.

WHY HAROLD DID NOT GO TO VASSAR.

The cottage in the lane, as its name implied, was not very pretentious,
and all its rooms were small and low, and mostly upon the ground floor,
except the one which Jerrie had occupied since she had grown too large
for the crib by Mrs. Crawford's bed. In this room, in which there was
but one window, and where the roof slanted down on both sides, Jerrie
kept all her possessions--her playthings and her books, and the trunk
and carpet-bag which had been found when she was found. Here she had cut
off her hair and slept on the floor, to see how it would seem, and here
she had enacted many a play, in which the scenes and characters were all
of the past. For the cold in winter she did not care at all, and when in
summer the nights were close and hot, she drew her little bed to the
open window and fell asleep while thinking how warm she was. That she
ought to have a better room had never occurred to her, and never had she
found a word of fault or repined at her humble surroundings, so
different from those of her girl friends. Only, as she grew taller, she
had sometimes laughingly said that if the kept on she should not much
longer be able to stand upright in her den, as she called it.

'I hit my head now everywhere except in the middle,' she once said. 'I
wonder if we can't some time manage to raise the roof.'

The words were spoken thoughtlessly, and almost immediately forgotten by
Jerrie: but Harold treasured them up, and began at once to devise ways
and means to raise the roof and give Jerrie a room more worthy of her.
This was just after he had left college, and there was