she found Harold warming some coffee over a fire of
chips, and cutting a slice of dry bread.

'What in the world!' she exclaimed, stopping short on the threshold. 'I
mean to be the first on the scene, and lo! here you are before me. What
are you doing?'

'Getting my breakfast,' Harold replied, turning toward her with a slight
shade of annoyance on his face. 'You see, I have a job. I did not tell
you last night that a Mr. Allen, who lives across the river, four miles
away, looked in one day when I was painting your ceiling, and liked it
so much that he has engaged me to paint one for him. I told him I was
only an amateur, but he said he'd rather have me than all the boss
painters in Shannondale. He offered me three dollars a day and board,
which means dinner and supper, or fifteen for the job; and I took the
last offer, as I can make the most at it by beginning early and working
late, and we need--'

Here he stopped short, for how could he tell Jerrie that the raised roof
had taken all his means, and that he even owed the grocer for the sugar
she had eaten upon her berries, and the butcher for the bit of steak
bought the previous night for her breakfast and his grandmother's. But
Jerrie guessed it without his telling, but with her quick instinct and
delicate perception knew that no genuine man like Harold cares to have
even his best friend know of his poverty if he can help it. Forcing back
the tears which sprang to her eyes, she cried, cheerily:

'Yes, I know; you are a kind of second Michael Angelo, though I doubt if
that old gentleman, at your age, could have done my room better than you
did. I don't wonder Mr. Allen wanted you. But you are not going to tramp
four miles on a hot morning, on nothing but bread and coffee, and such
coffee--muddier than the Missouri River! You shall have a decent
breakfast, if I can get it for you. Just sit down and rest, and see what
a Vassar with a diploma can do.'

As she talked she was replenishing the fire with hard-wood, putting on
the kettle, pouring out the coffee dregs saved from yesterday's
breakfast, and hunting for an egg with which to settle the fresh cup she
intended to make.

'No, no, Jerrie. No, you must not take that; it is all we have in the
house, and grandma must have a fresh one every day at eleven o'clock,
the doctor says--it strengthens her,' Harold said, rising quickly, while
Jerrie put the one egg back in the box and asked what Mrs. Crawford did
settle cof