came to act. She knew the
bag was safe, for she had climbed to the top shelf and found it just
where she had put it. But where were the diamonds? Had Harold taken them
with him? Had he told any one? Did his grandmother know anything about
them? she wondered. She tried in many ways to draw Mrs. Crawford out,
but was unsuccessful, for there were now too much pain and bitterness
connected with the diamonds for Mrs. Crawford to speak to her of them.
The poisonous breath of gossip had been at work ever since Harold went
away, quietly aided and abetted by Mrs. Tracy, who never failed to roll
her eyes and shrug her shoulders when Harold's name was mentioned, and
openly pushed on by Peterkin, until Tom Tracy went to him one day and
threatened to have him tarred and feathered and ridden on a rail, if he
ever breathed Harold's name again in connection with the diamonds.

'Wall, I swow!' was all Peterkin said, as he put an enormous quid of
tobacco in his mouth, and walked away, thinking to himself, 'Twould take
an all-fired while to scrape them tar and feathers off of me, I'm so
big, and I b'lieve the feller meant it. Them high bucks wouldn't like no
better fun than to make a spectacle of me; so I guess I'll dry up a
spell.'

But the trouble did not stop with Peterkin's talk, for a neighboring
Sunday paper, which fed its readers with all the choicest bits of
gossip, came out with an article headed 'The Tracy Diamonds,' and after
narrating the story in the most garbled and sensational manner, went on
to comment upon the young man's having run away, rather than face public
opinion, and to comment upon the law which could not touch him because
the offence was committed so long ago.

One after another, and without either knowing that the other had done
so, Tom, and Dick, and Billy, waited upon the editor of the Sunday
_News_, threatening to sue him for libel if he did not retract every
word of the offensive article in his next issue, which he did. But the
mischief was done, and the paper found its way at last to Jerrie, sent
unwittingly by Ann Eliza, who covered it over a basket of fruit and
flowers which was carried one afternoon to the cottage.

Jerrie had been down stairs several times, but was in her room when the
basket was brought to her. Raising the paper, she was about to throw it
on the floor, when her eye caught the words, 'The Tracy Diamonds,' and
with bloodless lips and wildly beating heart she read the article
throug