d her his wife.

'Lord bless you, I knew it was coming, but did not think it would be
quite so soon. You shock my nerves dreadfully,' Arthur exclaimed,
springing up and walking two or three times across the room. Then,
confronting the young couple, he said, 'Going to marry Harold? I knew
you would all this time. Well, he will do as well as any one to look
after the business. Frank is no good, and Colvin is too old. So, get
married at once, within a week if you like. I'm off for Germany next
month, to find Gretchen's grave, and the house, and the picture, and
everything, and as I shall take you with me I shall need some one with
brains to look after things while I am gone.'

'But father,' Jerrie began, 'if I go to Germany, Harold will go, too,
and if he stops here, I shall stay.'

Arthur looked at her inquiringly a moment, and then, as he begun to
understand, replied: 'Ah, yes, I see; "where thou goest, I go, and
where thou--" and so forth, and so forth. Well, all right; only you must
come here directly; it will never do to stay there, now you are engaged;
and you must be married in this room, with Gretchen looking on, and
soon, too. No wedding, of course, Maude's death is too recent for that;
but soon, very soon, so we can get off. I'll engage passage at once in
the Germanic, which sails the 15th of October, and you shall be married
the 10th. That's three weeks from to-day, and will give you a few days
in New York. I'll leave Frank here till we return, and then he must go,
of course, and the new mistress step in with Mrs. Crawford to
superintend. We will get some nice man and woman to stay with her while
we are gone.'

He had settled everything rapidly, but Jerrie had something to say upon
the subject. She did not wish to come to Tracy Park altogether while
Mrs. Tracy was there; she would rather enjoy the lovely room which
Harold had built for her, she said, and preferred to be married in the
cottage, the only home she had ever known.

'I shall stay with you all day,' she continued, 'but go home at night.'

'And so have a long walk with Harold. Yes, I see,' Arthur said,
laughingly, but assenting finally to her proposal.

It was Jerrie now who planned everything, with Harold's assistance, and
who broached the subject of Frank's future to her father, asking what
provision he intended to make for him when he left Tracy Park.

'What provision?' Arthur said. 'I guess he has made provision for
himself all these years