daughter. If he had
I could never forgive him. Why, I believe I'd kill him, or any other one
who, knowing that Jerrie was my daughter, kept it from me.'

He was gesticulating now with both hands, and Jerrie, who had listened
wonderingly to the conversation, took hold of them as they were swaying
in the air, and said to him softly:

'Father!'

The word quieted him, and with a gasp his mind seemed to change at once.

'Maude is very tired,' Jerrie went on; 'perhaps we'd better go now and
come again to-morrow.'

'Yes, yes, that's best, child. I'm not fond of sick rooms, though I must
say this is very free from smells,' Arthur replied; then stooping down
he kissed Maude again, saying to her as he rose to go:

'Don't worry about your father; he is my brother, and he was kind to
Jerry. I shan't forget that. Come, my daughter.'

And putting his arm fondly around Jerrie he left the room.

CHAPTER L.

THE FLOWER FADETH.

It took some days after Arthur's return for the household to settle down
into anything like order and quiet, Arthur was so restless and so happy,
and so anxious for everyone to recognise Jerrie as his daughter--Miss
Tracy, as he called her when presenting her to the people who had known
her all her life--the St. Claires, and Athertons, and Crosbys, and
Warners--who came to call upon and congratulate him. Even Peterkin came
in his coat-of-arms carriage, with a card as big as the back of
Webster's spelling book, and himself gotten up in a dress coat, with
lavender kids on his burly hands, which nearly crushed Arthur's in their
grasp as he expressed himself 'tickleder than he ever was before in his
life.'

'And to think I was the means on't,' he said, 'for if I hadn't of kicked
that darned old table into slivers when I was givin' on't to Jerrie,
she'd never of know'd what was in that dumbed rat-hole. I was a leetle
too upstrupulous, I s'spose, but I'll be darned if she didn't square up
to me like a catamount, till my hair riz right up, and I concluded the
Tramp House was no place for me. But I respect her for it; yes, I do,
and by George, old chap, I congratulate you with my whole soul, and so
does May Jane, and so does Ann 'Lizy, and so does Bill, and so does the
whole caboodle on us.'

This was Peterkin's speech, which Arthur received more graciously than
Jerrie, who, remembering Harold, could not be very polite to the man who
had injured him so deeply. As if divining her thoughts, Peterkin