for all the nerve power had left his hands, which lay helplessly in his
lap, and when he walked he looked more like a withered old man than a
young one of twenty-seven.

Maude was the first to rally--her first question for Harold, her second
for Jerrie--and her father, who was with her, answered truthfully that
Harold had not returned, and that Jerrie was sick and could not come to
her. He did not say how sick, and Maude felt no alarm, but waited
patiently until Jerrie should appear. For Maude, on her brass bedstead
with its silken hangings, and every possible luxury around her, there
were hired nurses and a mother's care, with many kind inquiries, while
it would seem as if every hand in town was stretched out to Jerrie, who
was a general favorite. Flowers and fruit and delicacies of every kind
were sent to the cottage, carriage after carriage stopped before the
door, offer after offer of assistance was made to Mrs. Crawford, while
Nina and Marian Raymond were there constantly; and Billy went to
Springfield for a chair in which to wheel his sister to the cottage, for
she could not yet mount into the dog-cart; and Tom and Dick whittled on
until the cross and the grave-stone were finished, and, with a sickly
smile, Tom said to Dick:

'Would you cut Jerrie's name upon it?'

'No; oh, no!' Dick answered, with a gasp. 'She may be better to-morrow.'

When, after a few days, the crisis was past, and Jerrie's strong
constitution triumphed over the disease which had grappled with it, the
whole town wore a holiday air as the people said to each other gladly:
'Jerrie is better; Jerrie will live!'

Her recovery was rapid, and within a week after the fever left her and
she awoke to perfect consciousness, she was able to sit up a part of
every day, and had walked across the floor and read a letter from Harold
to his grandmother, full of solicitude for herself and enthusiasm for
his trip over the wild mountains and across the vast plains to the
lovely little city of Tacoma, built upon a cliff and looking seaward
over the sound.

'Dear Harold,' Jerrie whispered. 'I shall be so glad when he comes home.
Nothing can be done till then, and I am so bewildered when I try to
think.'

In her weak state, everything seemed unreal to Jerrie, except the fact
that she had found her mother--and such a mother!--and many times each
day she thanked her God who had brought her this unspeakable joy, and
asked that she might do right when the time