heart shone through his diminutive body and always won him friends. He
was very happy to be there, because he liked society, and because he
knew Jerrie was coming; and Ann Eliza was very glad because she felt it
an honor to be at Grassy Spring, and because she knew Tom was coming,
and when he came she fastened upon him with a tenacity which he could
not well shake off; and when croquet was proposed she was the first to
respond.

'Oh, yes, that will be nice, and I know our side will beat,' and she
looked at Tom as it were a settled thing that she should play with him.

But Tom was not in a mood to be gracious. He had come to the
entertainment, which he mentally called a bore, partly because he would
not let Jerrie think he was taking her refusal to heart, and partly
because he must see her again, even if she never could be his wife. All
the better nature of Tom was concentrated in his love for Jerrie, and
had she married him he would probably have made her as happy as a wholly
selfish man can make happy the woman he loves. But she had declined his
offer, and wounded him deeper than she supposed.

A hundred times he had said to himself that afternoon, as he sat alone
in the lovely park--of which he had once said to Harold, he was to be
the _hare_, and of whose possession in the future he had boasted to
Jerrie--that he did not care a _sou_, that he was glad she had refused
him, for after all it was only an infatuation on his part; that the girl
of the carpet-bag was not the wife for a Tracy; but the twinge of pain
in his heart belied his words, and he knew he did love Jerrie Crawford
better than he should ever again love any girl, whether the daughter of
a governor or of the president.

'And I go to the party, too, just to show her that I don't care, and for
the sake of looking at her,' he said. 'She can't help that, and it is a
pleasure to look at a woman so grandly developed and perfectly formed as
she is. By Jove! Hal Hastings is a lucky dog; but I shall hate him
forever.'

So Tom pulled himself together, and went to Grassy Spring in a frame of
mind not the most amiable; and when croquet was proposed, he sneered at
it as something quite too _passe_, citing lawn tennis as the only decent
outdoor amusement.

'Why, then, don't you set it up on your grounds, where you have plenty
of room, and ask us all over there?' Dick asked, good-humoredly, as he
began to get out the mallets and balls.

To this Tom did not reply,