tle German girl with whom he
amused himself a while and then cast off, as men usually do such
incumbrances.'

Tom did not quite know himself what he was saying, or what it implied,
and he was not at all prepared to see the parasol stuck straight into
the ground, while Jerrie sprang to her feet and confronted him fiercely.

'Tom Tracy! If you mean to insinuate a thing which is not good and pure
against Gretchen, I'll never speak to you as long as I live! Take back
what you said about Mr. Arthur's casting her off! She was his wife, and
you know it? Dead, perhaps--I think she is; but she was his wife--his
true and lawful wife; and--I--sometimes--'

She could not add 'think she was my mother,' for the words stuck in her
throat, where her heart seemed to be beating wildly and choking her
utterance.

'Why, Jerrie,' Tom said, startled at her excited appearance, and anxious
to appease her, 'what can ail you? I hardly know what I said, and if I
have offended you, I am sorry, I know nothing of Gretchen; her face is a
good one and a pretty one, and Maude says you look like her; though I
don't see it, for I think you far prettier than she. Perhaps she was my
uncle's wife--I guess she was: but that does not injure my prospects,
for of course she is dead, or she would have turned up before this time.
We have nothing to fear from her.'

'She may have left a child. What then?' Jerrie asked, with as steady a
voice as she could command.

'Pshaw! humbug!' Tom replied, with a laugh. 'That is impossible. A child
would have been heard from before this time. There is no child; I'm sure
I hope not, as that would seriously interfere with our prospects. Think
of some one--say a young lady--walking in upon us some day and claiming
to be Arthur Tracy's daughter!'

'What would you do?' Jerrie asked, in a tone of smothered excitement.

'I believe I'd kill her,' Tom said, laughingly, 'or marry her, if I had
not already seen you. But don't worry about that. There is no child;
there is nothing between us and a million, and you have only to appoint
the day which will make me the happiest of men, and free you from a
drudgery, which just to think of sets my teeth on edge. Will you name
the day, Jerrie?'

If it had been possible for a look to have annihilated Tom, the scorn
which blazed in Jerrie's eyes would have done so. To hear him talk as if
the matter were settled and the money he was to inherit from his uncle
could buy her made her blood b