to know
much of love, or its symptoms in a girl. Would Nina St. Claire know?
Possibly, for she and Jerrie were great friends, and girls always told
each other their secrets, so Maude said, and Maude was just then his
oracle. He had seen so much of her the last few months that he felt as
if he knew her even better than he did Jerrie, and he was certainly more
at his ease in her presence. Then why not talk with Maude and enlist her
as a partisan. He might certainly venture to make her his confidente,
she had been so very communicative and familiar with him, telling him
things which he had wondered at, with regard to her father, and mother,
and Tom, and the family generally. Yes, he would sound Maude, very
cautiously at first, and get her opinion, and then he should know better
what to do. Maude would espouse his cause, he was sure, for she liked
him and worshipped Jerrie. He could trust her, and he would.

He had reached the Allen farm-house by this time, and though he was
perspiring at every pore, for the morning was very hot, he scarcely felt
the heat or the fatigue of his rapid four-mile walk, as he mixed his
paints and prepared for his work, for there was constantly in his heart
a thought of Jerrie, as she had looked in that bewitching dress, and of
the bright, smile she had flashed upon him when she said good-bye.

Meanwhile Jerrie had watched him out of sight, whistling merrily:

'Gin a body meet a body,
Comin' through the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?'

whistling it so loud and clear that Nannie came to the fence and put
her head over it with a faint low of approval, while Clover-top thrust
his white nose through the bars, and looked at her inquiringly, as
Jerrie pulled up handfuls of fresh grass and fed them from her hands,
noticing that Nannie had lost her knot of ribbon, and wondering where it
was. Then she returned to the house, and was busying herself with
preparations for her grandmother's breakfast and her own, when the
latter appeared in the kitchen, surprised to find her there, and saying:

'Why, Jerrie, what made you get up till I called you? Why didn't you lie
and rest?'

'Lie and rest,' Jerrie answered laughingly. 'It is you who are to lie
and rest, and not a great overgrown girl like me. I have given Harold
his breakfast and seen him off. I cooked him half the steak,' she added
as she took out the remaining half and put it on the gridiron. 'I don't
care for steak,'