e by Peterkin's bell. Pray be seated. How is Maude?'

She pointed to a wooden chair near the door, where Tom sat down, wholly
nonplussed, and not knowing at all what to say first.

Never before had he been received in this fashion, and it struck him
that there was something incongruous between himself, in his dainty
attire, with a cluster of beautiful roses in his hand, and that chair,
minus a back, in the woodshed, where the smell of the soapsuds would
have made him faint and sick if he had not been so near to the open
door.

Tom had not slept well the previous night. He had joined the fine
dinner-party his mother had given to the Hart's, and St. Claire's and
Atherton's, and had sat next to Fred Raymond's sister Marian, a very
pretty young girl with a good deal that was foreign in her style and in
her accent, for she had been in Europe nine years, and had only just
come home. Everything in her manner was perfect, from her low,
well-modulated voice, to her sweet, musical laugh, and Tom acknowledged
to himself that she was the most highly polished and cultivated girl he
had ever met; and still she tired him, and he was constantly
contrasting her with Jerrie, and thinking how much better he should
enjoy himself if she were there beside him, with her ready wit and
teasing remarks, which frequently amounted almost to ridicule. Jerrie
had been very gracious to him on the train, and had laughed and joked
with him quite as much as she had with Dick St. Clare.

'Perhaps she likes me better than I have supposed she did,' he thought.
'Anyway, I'd better be on hand, now she is at home and can see Harold
every day. He don't care a copper for Maude, or wouldn't if she didn't
run after him so much, and that will sicken him pretty soon, now that he
has Jerrie. By George, I believe I'd be as poor as he is, and paint for
a living, if I couldn't have Jerrie without it. But I think I can;
anyway, I am going to try. She cannot be insensible to the advantage it
would be to her to be my wife, and eventually the mistress of Tracy
Park. There is not a girl in the world who would not consider twice
before she threw such a chance away.'

Such was the nature of Tom's reflections all through the dinner, and to
him the tiresome talk which followed it and the short summer night
during which he was planning his mode of attack.

'I'll call in the morning and take her some roses; she likes flowers,'
he thought. 'I wonder what she did with those I