Dick's
society to theirs in a walk from Grassy Spring to the cottage, she
accepted his offer, and then said, laughingly:

'Now, good-morning to you, and good riddance, too, for I am in an awful
hurry, I am going over to see Maude as soon as I can get myself ready.'

She had not thought that Tom would wait for her, and would greatly have
preferred to walk; but Tom was persistent, and moving his chair from the
wood-shed outside into the shade where it was cooler, he sat fanning
himself with his hat, and watching the long line of clothes, which
Jerrie had washed, flopping in the wind, with a feeling of mortified
pride, as if his own wife had washed them. He knew that his mother had
once been familiar with tubs, and wash-boards, and soap-suds, but that
was before his day. Twenty-seven years had washed all that out, and he
really felt that to be a Tracy and live at Tracy Park was an honor
scarcely less than to be President of the United States, and Jerrie, he
was sure, would see it as such when once the chance was offered her. She
could not be so blind to her own interest as to refuse him, Tom Tracy,
who was so much sought after by the belles of Saratoga and Newport,
where he had spent a part of two or three seasons. He had been best man
at the great ---- wedding in Springfield, and groomsman at another big
affair in Boston, and had scores of invitations everywhere. Taken
altogether, he was a most desirable _parti_, and he was rather surprised
himself at his infatuation for the girl whom he had found in the suds,
and who was not ashamed that he had thus seen her. This was while he was
watching the clothes on the line, scowling at three pairs of coarse,
vulgar stockings which he knew belonged to Mrs. Crawford, and the pair
of blue overalls which were Harold's.

'Yes, I do wonder at my interest in that nameless girl, whose mother was
a common peasant woman,' he thought; but when the nameless girl
appeared, fresh, and bright, and dainty, as if she had never seen a
wash-tub, with her hat on her arm, and two of his roses pinned on the
bosom of her blue muslin dress, he forgot the peasant woman, and the
lack of a name, and thought only of the lovely girl who signified that
she was ready.

It was very cool in the pine woods, where the heat of the summer morning
had not yet penetrated, and Tom, who was enjoying himself immensely,
suggested that they leave the park and take a short drive on the river
road. But Jerrie, who was no