rspiring at every pore, and occasionally smiling to
herself as she thought, 'Grassy Spring, Le Bateau, Tracy Park, I might
take my choice, if I would, but I prefer the cottage,' and then at the
thought of Tracy Park her thoughts went off across the sea to Germany,
and the low room with the picture upon the wall, and her resolve to find
it some day.

'Far in the future it may be, but find it I will, and find, too, who I
am,' she said to herself, little dreaming that the finding was close at
hand, and that she had that day lighted the train which was so soon to
bear her on to the end.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

MAUDE.

Harold did not finish his work at the Allen farm-house until Tuesday, so
it was not until Wednesday afternoon that he started to pay his promised
visit to Maude. Jerrie had seen her twice, and reported her as much
better, although still very weak.

'She is so anxious to see you. Don't you think you can go this
afternoon?' she said to Harold, in the morning, as she helped him weed
the garden and pick the few strawberries left upon the vines.

'Ye-es, I guess I can--if you'll go with me,' he said.

He was so loth to be away from Jerrie when it was not absolutely
necessary, that even a call upon Maude without her did not seem very
tempting. But Jerrie could not go now, for Nina and Marian Raymond came
down to the cottage to spend the afternoon, and Harold went alone to the
park house, where he found Maude in the room she called her studio
trying to finish a little water-color which she had sketched of the
cottage as it was before the roof was raised.

'I mean it for Jerrie,' she had said to Harold, who stood by her when
she sketched it, 'and I am going to put her under the tree, with her sun
bonnet hanging down her back, as she used to wear it when she was a
little girl, and you are to be over there by the fence, looking at me
coming up the lane.'

It was the best thing Maude had ever done, for the likeness to Jerrie
and to herself was perfect, while the cottage, embowered in trees and
flowers, made it a most attractive picture. Harold had praised it a
great deal, and told her that it would make her famous. But when the
carpenter work came in Maude put it aside until now, when she brought it
out again, and was just beginning to retouch it in places, as Harold was
announced.

She was looking very tired, and it seemed to Harold that she had lost
many pounds of flesh since he saw her last. Her face was